


the definition of winning (is flawed)

by FloingMachines



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: But not in canon, Done in honor of Clexa's death, Dystopia, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fighter Pilot AU, Fighter Pilots, I promise the plot is not as complicated as it seems, I will update the tags as nessecary, Im addicted to world building, It's definitely an AU, oh my god they were roommates, side linctavia, side ranya, they were roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2019-11-08 20:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 38,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17988383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloingMachines/pseuds/FloingMachines
Summary: A war has split North America into two separate countries that cannot seem to find peace between each other.On one side is Lexa, a pilot in her own respective flight academy, and next in line to command the whole republic.On the other side is Clarke, a pilot training alongside many others, and just trying not to fight every person who outranks her.A radar mishap leads them both into a plane accident that luckily spares both of their lives. Far from home and in the woods, they meet and must overcome their differences to make their way back home.Tensions between both sides are brewing and they both find themselves in the midst of difficult questions with no right answers. Clarke is more entangled with politics than she ever wanted to be and Lexa suddenly finds herself with attachments on the other side. Nothing is as clear cut as it first seems.The Dystopia Fighter Pilot AU no one asked for(Rated M for later chapters, those chapters are marked)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of the anniversary of Lexa's death, I'm starting this AU. This is the first thing I've written and posted for The 100, but I'm excited to work on it. I was really inspired by a prompt I received and it felt right to put it with Clexa.

               “What does it mean to _win_?” Lexa’s professor was scribbling words on the chalk board, the white dust flying away from the surface, and coating her hands in a way that looked supernatural. The question seemed rhetorical at first, but when she didn’t keep talking and instead scanned her captive audience for answers she realized that she was looking for an actual defined answer.

               She raised her hand.

               “Ms. Woods?”

               “It depends on how you define victory and your goals. In any case, winning can be defined as achieving your goals and victories.”

               “Now that’s a very cut and dry way to look at things,” Lexa was ready to let that feeling of victory fill her chest, the feeling from answer a question that had seemed impossible at first, but her professor quickly cut the dream short. “But that’s not how we can define victory anymore.”

               Her breath caught in her throat and she looked down at her tablet in shame and crossed out the answer she had given. Wasn’t the definition of winning achieving set goals and triumphing above another party? She opened up the dictionary on the tablet and quickly typed in winning and she confirmed that the definition was _“Gaining, resulting in, or related to victory in a contest or competition_ ”.

               “There is winning in triumphing over an opponent.” Her professor was an older woman and a war veteran from the Last War. Her grey hair was pulled into a tight bun on her head, but she suspected that she only appeared as old as she was because of the war. “ _However_ , if winning requires that you lose an inordinate number of troops when you are already weakened,” She wrote the name of a battle on the board. “Then it is not a win. Winning at any cost is usually not a win, especially if you are already weak. Winning the battle does not guarantee you will win the war.”

               “ _The Battle for Washington DC_ ” was written on the board in neat handwriting.

               “Can anyone tell me about the Battle for Washington DC?”

               Lexa could have, but she found herself captivated by her professor’s lecture. It was a moment where she was much more compelled to stand by and watch the lecture unfold around her. It wasn’t a stance she usually took, but after being disproved and then her professor asking about such a prolific battle she decided it was in her best interest.

               “The Battle of DC was one of the last battles of the Last War.” One of her classmates spoke up. “It was a loss for us, and a win for what is now the North American Democratic Republic, however it resulted in a 86% loss of troops for the NADR. This toll so late in the war ultimately led them to lose the war and pushed them in Northern Canada with a border near 45 degrees North. It was hundreds of miles farther north than what they had been fighting for.”

               “Very good, Anya.” The professor scribbled some more. “The Battle for Washington DC won the Last War for us. It cost the NADR hundreds, if not thousands of all miles, but why? It was because they followed a ‘win at any cost’ structure. The war had lasted six years by the time the Battle for Washington DC had occurred. Now, many sources will tell you that six years is a relatively short time in the history of human warfare, but one must consider the extenuating circumstances. Seven years prior to the battle the world had seen the most destructive nuclear event ever. Climate change became unsustainable and the world’s powers at the time unleashed their most destructive weapons on each other. By the time the Battle for Washington DC came to be most, if not all, of the remaining infrastructure had crumbled. All that was left was the NADR and the North American Republic.”

               “They were dividing up what was left of North America and could not agree based on leadership principles. The NADR was adamant on rebuilding society with the vision of the United States Constitution at the helm, and we were convinced that having elected bodies was inefficient considering the circumstances. War ensued. The Last War, named as such because it was the Last War before we entered the age we are in currently. Our principles still hold true, all of you in this room are the most elite in the Republic, all of you meant for greatness, and for leadership roles. Winning a battle at any cost does not guarantee winning the war.”

               A bell rang throughout the building and Lexa began to put her things back in her bag.

               “Dismissed, we will continue this discussion next week.”

               This specific memory coursed through her brain and the veins running through her body precisely at this moment. There were warning lights blinking and beeping everywhere and she could smell smoke coming from her plane. _What does it mean to win?_

               She had stopped a NADR plane from flying into what appeared to be enemy territory, but at what cost? _My own life_ , she thought bitterly, as her altitude began to drop rapidly. She was in the middle of nowhere, about to crash into the forest.

               No one knew where she was. She had seen the radar reading all on her own and had acted without thought. Her plane was unlocked and without so much as a second thought she had thrown herself into the cockpit and took off. Unauthorized.

               The ground was coming closer and it was coming closer at an alarming rate.

               Had they been trained for this? Surely, they had learned what to do in case you began to crash in flight school and in training. The tail of her plane made a sickening cracking sound and she could see the charred remains of it fall to the ground. Her knuckles were white as she grasped the controls and tried to steady the vessel.

               The information the radar had given her was as follows: a NADR plane was flying into their territory, armed with bombs. They weren’t nuclear, but they were incredibly dangerous none the less. She couldn’t afford to shoot the plane midair, or it would have exploded. Instead she opted to become a human shield and had let the enemy jet fly right through her tail.

               _What do you do when your plane is crashing?_

               If this were a simulator, Lincoln would be shouting at her by now, but Lincoln wasn’t here, and this wasn’t a simulator. What would Lincoln be shouting at her?

               _Pull the eject, dumbass!_

               She choked on her own breath and her heart caught in her throat as she reached down and pulled the ejection lever. As her seat went flying into the air and a parachute deployed, she only had one thought on her mind.

               _What does it mean to win?_

* * *

 

               “It’s a simple scouting mission,” Bellamy was following her around the base again. “I really don’t want to go. Will you please go for me?”

               “Why can’t you go? If it’s so simple?”

               “What, like you have plans for tonight?”

               “Fuck off, Bellamy.”

               “Come on, I just really don’t feel like it.”

               “Yeah, and I didn’t feel like hearing you whining today either.”

               “That was harsh.”

               “Yeah, well…”

               “Is this about last week?”

               “What about it?”

               Clarke began walking down the hall and Bellamy ran after her and she tried not to roll her eyes at him.

               “I’m sorry, is that what you want?”

               “Sorry for what? Throwing me under the bus in front of Kane?”

               “I didn’t have a lot of other options!”

               “Take the fucking blame yourself, Bellamy!”

               “Come on, Clarke.”

               “Don’t ‘come on, Clarke’ _me_! Fuck off, Bellamy. I’m not running your errands for you.”

               “Fine.” He huffed and stomped the other way down the hallway.

               “What an ass.” Clarke muttered to herself as she kept walking towards Raven’s quarters.

               Raven had been itching to hear the drama unfolding in the flight training since Clarke had mentioned that there was drama at all. She cited it was because all the engineers were boring, but she suspected that Raven was itching to hear less secretive things about her life and to just hear the gossip in general.

               Nothing that happened with Bellamy remained secret for very long, he was high profile, and people were always eager to hear what he had to say. Most of the women in the military school would jump at the chance to have anything to do with him. Clarke had known him since they had been toddlers and their parents had been friends, and she could concur that she’d rather drop dead than be in any way romantically involved with him.

               He was arrogant and his familial ties to the leadership of the military and the NADR didn’t help. He knew that he could practically get away with murder if he wanted to and used this knowledge to his advantage. In short: he was an ass of a person and she wanted to fight him on pretty much a daily basis.

               She knocked on Raven’s doors and she heard a shout come from behind them. There was a clattering sound before she heard footsteps approaching and the door slid open. Raven’s hands were covered in grease and scratches and her face wasn’t much better.

               “Its’s been _forever_ since you’ve visited.” Raven leaned against the open doors.

               “I’ve been a little busy, but I’m here now. Can I come in?”

               “No. I invited you over here just to have you stand in the hallway.”

               “Don’t be an ass.” Clarke laughed and pushed Raven out of her way.

               Raven’s room was half lit and filled with little mechanics everywhere. There were tools and spare screws on nearly every available surface and blinking multi-colored lights seemed to have homes in every dark crevice.

               “How do you even sleep in here?” Clarke asked as she picked up a palm sized electronic that looked vaguely like a mouse. Open gently touching the back of its head it whirred to life and she yelped and dropped it.

               “Careful!” Raven picked up the little mouse. “This is all fragile.”

               “So you’re telling me you haven’t stepped on anything?”

               “Now I didn’t say that. Don’t stretch the truth.”

               “Bellamy’s being an ass.”

               “What’s new?” Clarke sat on her bed and Raven sat on the floor, continuing to inspect the little machine Clarke had dropped.

               “He threw me under the bus in front of Kane last week. Said that the reason one of the test engines failed was because _I_ had failed to inspect it over the weekend. Anyone with eyes could see that they had failed when Bellamy was supposed to be tending to them, but somehow it became my fault anyways. _Then_ he had the audacity to ask me to do a favor for him today!”

               “What did he ask?”

               “Wanted me to do a simply patrol along the border for him. He said he, and I quote, ‘didn’t feel like it’.”

               “What an ass.”

               “Truly.”

               Raven sighed. “Too bad nearly everyone here wants to get into his pants.”

               “Would they still feel that way if I told them that I knew for a fact that he didn’t shower more than once a month?”

               Raven shrugged. “I want to say that I sure hope not, but I know in all likelihood that it wouldn’t change a lot.”

               “Gross.”

               “The only reason you’re not attracted to him is because you’ve known him since birth. People just aren’t attractive if you’ve known them that long.”

               “I’m not attracted to him because he’s never seen a hair brush and he’s a total ass. I can barely stand being around him.”

               “That’s fair. I’m glad I barely ever have to look at him anymore. I fix his plane and then other people handle the rest.”

               “I wish I were you.”

               “Bet you do, your pager is going off.”

               Clarke’s eyebrows drew together before she grabbed her pager off the bed. Bellamy’s patrol had been switched to her duty by Kane.

               “Motherfucker!” She raised her arm as if to throw the pager, but Raven grabbed her wrist first.

               “What’s wrong?”

               “Bellamy’s patrol got transferred to me. I have to cut this catch-up session short.”

               “Gross. I’ll send him a computer virus if you want.”

               “Don’t you dare, it’s not worth it.” She stood up. “I’ll catch you later?”

               Raven smiled. “Yeah, later.”

               _I’m sorry that I might have lied to you, Raven_ , Clarke thought as she saw the NAR plane fly in her path.

               The plane had come from out of nowhere and had scared the shit out of her. Whoever it was had been flying under the disguise of night. It was definitely a NAR plane, she could tell by the markings, but she couldn’t figure out why it had suddenly acted so aggressively. She jerked the steering controls around, trying to either go up or down to miss the impending crash, but it was too late.

               The front of the plane slammed into the rear tail of the NAR plane and the explosion that resulted shook her entire body and left her ears ringing. Smoke was beginning to pour into the cockpit and she coughed as she tried to remember what she was supposed to do.

               _I’m going to fucking kill you, Bellamy_ , she thought to herself. She was going to strangle him if she ever got back.

               Her hands fumbled as she blindly searching for the ejection lever.

               Her shaking hands wrapped around it as the altimeter fell faster and faster. She yanked it with all her might and her seat was blasted into the night sky. The parachute deployed above her and as she tried to look out onto the distance, she could’ve sworn she saw another parachute.


	2. Chapter 2

               Lexa fumbled with the seatbelt that was holding her down to the ejected seat. She was no worse for the wear beyond her hammering heart and bruises that were no doubt littering her body. The parachute was draped over her and made a small tent around her where the fabric peaked on her head. Her hands were shaking too bad to properly get ahold of the belt buckle and she took a couple deep breaths to steady herself.

               After a few moments of clarity, she was able to undo the buckle like she always had, and she was able to detangle herself from the parachute. She was in the middle of a forest, in the middle of the night, and she was alone with no backup. She was relieved to see the parachute had not gotten irreparably tangled in the tree branches, but she couldn’t tell where the rest of her plane had gone. She needed to get to it and try and find the survival kit and radio for help.

                Her legs were shaky, and she found herself leaning against a tree to steady herself. In the distance she could hear a crackling sound.

               _Bingo, there’s my plane_

               There was a faint orange glow in the distance and she began walking towards it. She had no intuition of where the wind might have blown her in relation to her crashing plane, but it seemed reasonable enough that she was a ways off from where her plane had spun out. There was an inkling in the back of her mind that she didn’t hear the explosion of the bomber’s crash, but she ignored the thought in favor of pursuing her own crashed vessel.

               It would have been moot to search for survivors of the other crash. It was unlikely the pilot would have survived the explosion, especially if it was nuclear, and it was easier to survive as one than two. She had never managed to meet a NADR soldier or pilot in person either, everyone who had ever been brought in was before she had the proper security clearance. It wouldn’t have done much in the ways to sway her either. The people who had been brought in were war criminals who had found themselves on the wrong side of the border, and face to face with the wrong people.

               The woods were quiet. The woods, once, were not so quiet. Once upon a time there would have been birds and other animals that were walking and chirping, even in the dead of night, but now there was nothing. Most life was wiped out by the Last War and the events preceding it. Biologists reported that the ecology was slowly recovering, but it wasn’t enough to replace the silence of the woods around her.

               They were her namesake after all, and for a moment it felt right that the only sound was her boots crunching against the leaves on the ground. There was more crackling noises and she could start to feel the heat radiating from the air craft. There was a bit of dread growing in her chest because she wasn’t close yet and she could already feel the heat.

               It appeared as if there would be very little to salvage from the vessel.

               That meant the survival kit.

               That meant her weapons.

               That meant the radio, her only way to contact home.

               “Shit.” She mumbled to herself. “This is hopeless.”

               _Even if there is nothing there, there is fire to keep me warm_

               She kept walking towards the flames – however little hope they will hold beyond the utility of warmth and wondering what will await her. Will there be anything to call for help with? Anything to sustain her for more than a day or two at most? It wasn’t quite winter yet, but the temperatures were already starting to dip into levels that would be dangerous if unprotected.

               Here she was, unprotected.

               They taught her how to survive in the wilderness. Exposure was the fastest way to die, then dehydration, and then hunger. Somewhere in there had to be mutated animals mauling her to death or contracted rabies. In that case she’d rather be dead and would probably have to end it all before she too was too contaminated to think straight.

               There was something comforting about her namesake, though. It was as if she felt she could hold on a little longer if only by the virtue that she shared a name with the place she was marooned. She could begin to walk back towards where the nearest ground patrol would be and attempt to flag down help.

               It was hotter now than it was a handful of yards back. The flames were brighter and closer. She had to be near the clearing where the wreckage was. That was simple thermodynamics at least.

               There were trees knocked down like bowling pins and she could see the flaming wreckage, what was left of the fuselage was backlit by its own inferno. The only odd thing was that the back end still seemed to be intact and she could’ve sworn that she watched the back end of her plane get torn off and fall quite a bit behind where her plane was.

               She tried to stay alert as she slowly approached the wreckage. Something seemed amiss here, something she couldn’t quite place, and when she got even closer to the wreckage it suddenly became obvious. This wasn’t her plane at all. This was the NADR plane that she had downed.

               “Who the hell are you?”

               The voice made her jump and she turned around to see a blonde woman her own age who looked a bit worse for the wear standing angrily with her back to the woods. The first thing that struck Lexa was how the fuck she had managed to get behind her. The second thing was the other woman’s blue eyes and how striking they were with the reflection of fire in them.

               “My name is Lexa Woods…”

               “Where the fuck did you come from?”

               “I…”

               “You’re the NAR pilot who downed me!” The blonde woman took three quick strides towards Lexa as if to hit her and she tensed up instinctively. “What the hell! I was on an air patrol!”

               “…What?” The words felt heavy in her mouth.

               “I was patrolling! Why did you fly in front of me? What is wrong with you?”

               “Radar said…”

               “What did radar say?”

               “They said you had bombs – nuclear ones most likely.”

               The blonde woman remained silent for a moment, a couple different emotions passing across her face, and then finally sighed. “I’m not helping either of us if I try and fistfight you. We’re both downed.”

               “I don’t think anyone knows where I am.” Lexa rubbed the back of her neck nervously. “I’m sorry that I received wrong information.”

               “Doesn’t matter now, does it?” The other woman laughed nervously. “I’m Clarke.” She held out her hand and Lexa took it.

               “Just Clarke?”

               “Clarke Griffin.”

               “Nice to meet you Clarke, but you know I wish I was under better circumstances.”

               “You said no one knows where you are?”

               “Not that I’m aware of.”

               “Okay.” Clarke released a small breath. “I sent out a distress signal before I crashed.”

               “Okay.”

               “It’s going to the NADR.”

               “I didn’t think you would send one to the NAR.”

               “I think your best bet for getting out of here would be to stick with me then.”

               “What?”

               “People will come, you’ll go back to where you came from.”

               “I can’t go with the NADR, Clarke.”

               “It’s a life or death situation. I think your people will forgive you.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

               _She has no idea who I am_. Lexa’s heart was hammering in her chest as she tried to obscure the real reason she didn’t want to be captured by the NADR. Clarke’s superiors would immediately recognize her value, especially as a bargaining chip. Enough strained negotiations were happening between the two countries that she could see this easily going south for her.

               “I can’t go with you when your people come for you.”

               “We’ll see how you’re feeling after spending a couple nights out here.”

               Clarke walked towards the wreckage but stepped back when she was within two yards of it. The flames were too aggressive to get any closer. Lexa kept a distance, crossing her arms over her chest. Clarke was awful agreeable for someone she had just taken out of the sky, but she would hang on in her company until she could figure out a better plan.

               It seemed, at least for now, that she was stuck with her.

               _Namesake, protect me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

               _Stick with me_.

               It was immediately apparent that Clarke had no idea who she was. One thing was for sure and that was that she couldn’t go with Clarke when the NADR came. Clarke might be out of the loop, but her superiors would not be. They technically weren’t actively at war anymore, but things were still incredibly tense as evidenced by the fact that Lexa didn’t hesitate to try and bring Clarke out of the sky under the suspicion of attack.

               “Where am I from?” Lexa remembered asking the question when she was a little bit younger to her captain or maybe it was a lieutenant? It didn’t matter now, but she was asking someone in a position of power where she was from.

               She had tried to ask the question before with only a little success. Answers she got were always sparse and evasive of the original question she had asked. The only answer she could ever get was that she was “found”. She had been abandoned and the NAR had brought her in. The way it was phrased always made her feel like she was in debt for their rescue. She was in debt for something she couldn’t even remember.

               She had excelled in school and in her military training. She placed value in any success she could find and there was a part of her that had long ago internalized the notion of debt to the NAR, and academic success seemed to bet the best method of debt repayment in her eyes. Whether or not this method got her anywhere in that direction, it did rocket her to the top of her class. Then it moved her into another class.

               Then it moved her into fighter pilot training.

               Finally, it moved her into the inner circle. She could only assume that’s what it was. She had been told that she was to be next in line to lead the NAR. That she had skills beyond any of her peers. That picking her up and taking her in hadn’t been a waste, because what if they had left her outside to die? They would have ended up with someone inferior.

               These were all things she had been told. To her, these were the facts. The NADR knew these facts as well. And even though there wasn’t a war at hand, there were things that they wanted, and it would be all too easy to use her to get them. Something she had been taught was not to underestimate her own worth and, in this situation, she knew that the results would be dire if she let her guard down for even a second.

               Clarke seemed well meaning enough. There was no chance that she was lying about the lack of bombs on the plane, the wreck itself would have been damning enough if there were. There wouldn’t be any wreckage left to damn if it did have even half the munitions the radar system had told her the plane was carrying. That begged the question of why the radar was so wrong. Had it simply tracked the wrong plane? Or was it a glitch in the system? If it was the latter, then it would have to be immediately addressed to stop anymore false alarms.

               Lexa was sitting on a tree that had been knocked horizontal thanks to the crash and she watched Clarke pace in a circle around the wreckage. The flames had begun to die down a bit and they were reflecting off of the other woman’s blonde hair in a way that almost made it look red. An interesting person for sure. She still couldn’t tell if Clarke genuinely didn’t know who she was or if this was an elaborate ruse to take her into NADR custody.

               “Anything useful has already burned up.” Lexa remarked as Clarke attempted to sift through some of the remains and found them too hot to touch.

               “You don’t know that.”

               “That was burning jet fuel. I know it’s hot enough to burn anything useful.”

               “Do you have a better idea?” Clarke faced her and asked angrily. “Aid won’t arrive for a day at least. It’s winter. We’re going to freeze if we’re not careful.”

               “By all means, keep looking for the flammable fabric.”

               Clarke turned back to the wreckage and tried to nudge charred remains out of the way with a long stick. “I don’t know why you bothered coming over here.”

               “I thought this was my plane when I saw the flames.”

               “I thought ‘anything useful has already burned up’,” Clarke mimicked her and even though Lexa couldn’t see her eyes, she was pretty sure Clarke had inserted an eye roll somewhere into that sentence. “What’s the point?”

               “I wanted to find my black box. I could’ve transmitted back to my superiors and they could’ve tracked my location.”

               “Well, seems like you’re stuck with me for now.”

               “That wasn’t the plan.”

               “Was it also in the plan to knock me out of the sky?” Clarke asked bitterly. “I still have a hard time believing that your radar systems marked me as armed.”

               “What? You think I body blocked your plane for fun? To take potshots at the NADR and endanger my own life?”

               Clarke shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

               Lexa remained silent for a moment. “There’s no reason to be like that.”

               “Like what? Pissed off that you knocked me out of the sky for no reason?” Clarke released from her crouching pose and allowed herself to stand before turning around towards Lexa. “I was a benign border patrol. You could be charged with a crime. You could have started the next war.”

               Lexa scoffed. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Radar records will show that I was in the right. I made a call based on the information that I had at the time.”

               “I wonder what an investigation would turn up then, hm?”

               “You couldn’t order an investigation of our radar system even if you wanted to. It’s strictly off limits and your military has no jurisdiction.”

               “But if we were to extrapolate the information from your wrecked plane then – “

               “We don’t know where the wreck is.” Lexa was growing increasingly annoyed with Clarke.

               “Yes, but we are currently in NADR territory.”

               Lexa fell quiet. “No, we’re not.”

               “We weren’t when you ran me over, but I was knocked back across the border and so were you.” Clarke smirked and it was infuriating. “Technically, you’re trespassing now.”

               “It’s not trespassing, the circumstances are very extreme.”

               “You’re going to have to come back to the NADR anyways. They’ll just throw you back where you came from.”

               “That can’t happen.”

               “Well then you’re welcome to walk yourself back over your side of the border.” Clarke sat down next to the wreckage. “And you’re smart enough to know that doing that is a suicide move.”

               “I won’t go.”

               “For fuck’s sake, Lexa, we’re not going to kidnap you.”

               “Whatever you say.”

               They remained silent for a moment. The wreckage was illuminating half of Clarke’s face and Lexa watched her slump back until she was laying on the ground with her hair fanning around her in the dirt. Her hands were clasped across her middle and Lexa suspected she had closed her eyes.

               Lexa hopped off the downed tree. “I’m going to go get some fuel so we can start a fire that isn’t revolved around a burning aircraft.”

               “Uh huh.” Clarke mumbled.

               She wandered into the woods and it quickly felt like the darkness was swallowing her. She picked up some sticks and held them in the crook of her elbow. Clarke was very cavalier about the whole situation, almost like she had been through something similar. She wasn’t about to freak out either, but she was uneasy nonetheless.

               What if Clarke was right? She knew that she was right in the respect that she was in NADR territory and that it would be suicidal to try and walk back over the border. She knew it would be a mistake for many reasons – it was dark, it was winter, and it would reduce the chances of someone finding her.

               She couldn’t just go with the NADR. It wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t make sense. As soon as they came she could just explain what had happened and then they’d just return her right back where she came from.

               No, but that’s just wishful thinking. She knows that they wouldn’t do that.

               She turns around and can see the plane smoking in the distance. Clarke is still laying down on the ground and she’s still holding sticks that may or may not burn. Somehow, she will get back to where she belongs, and Clarke will go back to where she belongs. They will probably see each other again, but in even less favorable circumstances than they’re already in.

               Lexa takes a deep breath and starts walking back towards the plane. The NADR will come or maybe the NAR will come and somehow she’ll get back to where she belongs. Things will fall back into place and she’ll investigate the radar and hopefully nothing like this will ever happen again.

               Clarke props herself up when she walks back into the clearing and waves one of her hands absently. Lexa sits on the other side of the plane and starts the beginnings of a fire pit as she grabs an ember off of the plane. Things could be worse. Things could be so much worse.

               The fire starts after a few tries and the ember takes to the small sticks and to pieces of her shirt that she cut off and threw in. She stared at the flame for a moment before finally laying back on the ground like Clarke. She can’t see the other woman, but she has a feeling that she’s asleep too. Things will have a different perspective in the morning and she can deal with that when the sun rises and she can make a more informed decision.

               Her eyes flutter shut as the day catches up to her and she falls asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

               Lexa’s sleep isn’t peaceful, but she wasn’t expecting it to be anyways. The sun was up when she opened her eyes and she sat up and blinked a few times. It wasn’t high over the horizon and if she had to guess it wasn’t too far past dawn. She took a few steadying breaths before looking to her left and seeing the charred remains of Clarke’s plane and she was suddenly reminded of the other woman’s existence.

               “Clarke?” Lexa stood up and paced to the other side of the plane, only to find it empty. Her eyebrows drew together anxiously.

               She looked around the forest but couldn’t catch a glimpse of her. She quietly chastised herself for worrying about her this much, after all she was technically the enemy. What she needed to be worrying about was how the hell she was going to get back.

               Logically, she knew that there would be people looking for her. Her disappearance would not go unnoticed and the logs would show that she had taken a plane out the night before. They would be able to track down the last place where coordinates had been reported and they would start scanning…except she wasn’t on NAR territory.

               The whole thing felt off to Lexa. First the radar was entirely wrong and then she ends up in NADR territory alone with an enemy pilot? She just couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole thing was a setup to use her as leverage.

               The NADR had been attempting to bargain with the NAR to move their Southern border farther south and reclaiming some of the land they had lost in the war in the process. They wanted to reclaim what had been Maine, the Dakotas, and open trade along the Great Lakes. The biggest issue was there were secret hangars and military bases in those regions, specifically those near the Great Lakes, and if they were to find the bases it could very well start another war.

               Lexa sat down again as she thought through the problem. The bases by the Great Lakes were technically not allowed to be there, per the signed treaty at the end of the Last War. They were too close to the Southern border of the NADR, which was on purpose. These bases could mobilize quickly in case of disaster and thus had been kept secret from most people and especially the enemy.

               The NADR had become increasingly more insistent as the negotiations dragged on and the NAR refused to give up the territory they were arguing for. The NADR had almost no leverage in the negotiations beyond good behavior since the end of the war and they might be looking for leverage. Whether or not Clarke was in on this potential plan was a little moot, they could very well be using her as a pawn as well.

               “Lexa?”

               She was jarred from her thoughts and wondered briefly if she was being paranoid.

               “Hey.” Lexa stood up and saw Clarke walking from the woods and holding bundles of sticks.

               “I was able to get my black box to transmit.”

               “Excuse me?”

               “I was able to send a transmission. There are people looking for us now.”

               Lexa felt her jaw lock involuntarily. “I told you, I’m going to find my way back over into the right territory. I’m not going with you.”

               “Do you even know where you are?” Clarke asked angrily, dropping the bundles as she raised her arms up in anger and let them fall back down to her side. “Do you know which way is south? You’re in the middle of nowhere! If my calculations are correct, and they most likely are, we are _at least_ ten miles from the border. You’ll walk ten miles? And then what? You’ll stumble across the border and die of dehydration, or exhaustion, or both! You’re a fucking idiot if you think you can do that.”

               “Quite frankly, I like that idea better than going with you back to the NADR.”

               “You’d rather die then just cooperate for like five fucking minutes? What is your problem?” Clarke paused and squinted at her. “Are you hiding something?”

               “I don’t know. Are _you_?”

               They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. “You’re more important than you’re letting on, aren’t you?” Clarke asked. It wasn’t angry, but there was still force behind her words.

               “Perhaps.”

               “Coming with me still can’t be worse than literal death.”

               “Debatable.”

               Clarke shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I really don’t know who you are, but I’m not going to let you just sit here and die of exposure when help comes. No one is going to torture secrets out of you if you come with me, I’m sure a deal could be worked out.” She paused and looked at her boots. “Unless something else is happening?”

               “I wouldn’t be authorized to tell you, even if something was happening.”

               Clarke sighed. “I mean from what I can see, something got fucked up somewhere. It sucks that this is happening, but we have to work with what we have. And what we have right now is rescuers coming to pick us up from the middle of the woods. Let’s work with that and then we’ll go from there. You’re not like a…war criminal, right?”

               “I’m not a war criminal, Clarke.” She stated flatly.

               “Then nothing should happen to you when they come. Let’s work with what we have.”

               “Alright.” Lexa nodded as the logic of what Clarke was saying sunk. “I’ll do my best to work with it.”

               Clarke could be lying. Clarke could be lying about a lot of things. Hell, Clarke could be lying about everything. The kicker was that even if nearly everything she told her was a lie, she still didn’t know where the NAR border was and she wasn’t equipped to hike across it and find a town or a military base anyways. Her best option was going along with whatever had been setup for her and go with Clarke to the NADR.

               That wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to fight through this, brute force her way back to where she came from, but it just wasn’t viable. She was no match for the elements and Clarke had a point. She could be dead in the woods or alive in a NADR encampment. She was infinitely more useful to everyone if she was alive in a NADR encampment.

               There was the faint sound of a helicopter in the distance and her ears perked up instinctively and she saw Clarke wildly look around. They shouldn’t be hard to find; the plane crash had cleared out more than its fair share of trees and probably looked like a bad scar from the air.

               “That was fast.” Clarke said and began pacing as the sound got louder.

               “It appears so.” The fast response _also_ seemed suspicious to Lexa, but she tried to push the paranoia away.

               The black helicopter appeared on the skyline and the pair backed away rapidly as it touched down. Clarke ran towards the vehicle and Lexa suddenly felt frozen as she saw armed NADR troops running towards her.

               “Hey! This was all a big misundstanding!” Clarke was yelling in the background as they handcuffed her hands behind her back. “She didn’t do anything wrong!”  
               She could still hear Clarke yelling when they put the black bag over her head.

              


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters! Woo!

            _She was lying to me_. Lexa’s mind was hazy as she was forced into the helicopter. _Of course you were being set up!_ The logical solution was that Clarke _had_ set her up and that her yelling in the background and then angrily being told to shut up was all an act. It was a very convincing act at that, and she couldn’t help but still feel a little guilty as she heard Clarke being reprimanded.

            “Bellamy, call this off and let her go. This is all a big misunderstanding.”

            “Clarke, we can’t talk about this here.”

            “She didn’t do anything wrong, she didn’t hurt me!”

            “Wrong, she downed a friendly NADR plane. That’s could be taken as an act of war!”

            “Talk to her and you’ll see! There was an error with her radar, she’s been very cooperative…”

            “Clarke, I told you, we cannot talk about this now.”

            “Tell Kane that this is a mistake Bellamy. They’ll listen to you.”

            Her pleading with the asshole that she assumed was Bellamy almost sounded sincere, almost like it wasn’t manufactured to lull her into a false sense of security. She ground her teeth together at their conversation – this was all a set up. All she had to do was bide her time and not buy into this bullshit.

            “Is she still awake?”

            “What?”

            “Did anyone tranquilize her?”

            “Should we have?”

            Lexa began to strain against the ties around her wrist and ankles as they continued talking amongst themselves. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her lower back and she tried to fight the urge to close her eyes and let her body relax. They were trying to sedate her so that she couldn’t pick up on any more potential information…

            The drug was too much for her body and she felt her eyes close and her body slump forward. This was not what she wanted – not what she planned, but here she was. She was sedated in enemy territory on an enemy plane that could be going anywhere. It was guaranteed to be far away from home where someone could find her and rescue her.

            And Clarke.

            There was a part of her that had started to like Clarke a little bit, but Clarke had lied to her. There’s no way that she didn’t know this mission would end in her capture, and the potential start of another war. This had to be some sort of NADR plan, or so she thought. They wanted territory back and had been in failed negotiations for months. She was the perfect bargaining chip.

            The NADR wasn’t known for being particularly savage or keen on torture, but she wasn’t doing any good while sitting in some enemy prison. She needed to be training and studying so that she could graduate flight school and join the fleet. She needed to be practicing and studying so she could assume the leadership position that she was in line for.

            It wasn’t that no one else could fill the roll, her class was full of many capable students, and she wasn’t jealous of them either. However, the NAR needed all the sharp minds it could get, especially considering the new direction that the NADR had been taking. If there were willing and ready to start kidnapping people, then the NAR couldn’t just lie in wait.

            That being said, she also found her whole radar situation incredibly odd. The radars had very few malfunctions, and malfunctions were not usually marked with complete misidentification of planes. Clarke did seem truly oblivious on that end, but that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t done the tampering.

            It would be a wise move for the NADR to draw her out in order to take her as a hostage of sorts. They could use her to get back the land that the NAR had built illegal bases on, and they could try and extort information about why they had been so secretive and hesitant about surrendering the lands for trade routes. In fact, it was almost genius.

            Her radar had been tampered with.

            The NADR wanted to use her as a bargaining chip and as a well of information.

            Something bigger was going on here.

            The thoughts strung together almost incoherently in her drugged state. This was all intentional and it was likely that Clarke was in on what was happening. Why else had she used the black box? Why had she been so insistent on Lexa staying?

            Played beside her realizations about her situations were pictures of Costia.

            She hadn’t thought about Costia in forever.

            It had always been too painful for her to revisit what had happened with her. All of her thoughts about her had been reserved to recurring nightmares and apparently drug induced hazes now. Costia, with her deep brown skin and freckles that stood out when they caught the sun. Costia, with her eyes that looked almost black sometimes, but whenever she looked into them all she could see was light.

            Costia had deserved so much better than her anyways. She was busy and distracted. She always had issues fully realizing her emotions. She could never reciprocate in the way Costia deserved, to give herself over fully to her. That wasn’t to say it was better off like this, it very much was not, but Lexa knew that nothing ever could have happened between them even if she had wanted it to.

            She did, though.

            There was no other explanation as to why she would see her face if she wasn’t careful. She missed her so much. Anya could make her laugh, but not the same way Costia could. She had a few friends, but of the few that were her peers, she wasn’t sure if they wanted her power. She had friends who were senior to her as well, but they fell under a more professional category. She could never be truly open or close with them. She doubted she would ever be able to open up to someone near to her ever again.

            That was just the circumstance. The chips lay where they fell and Lexa had never felt the need to move them and break the rules of her life. She could find satisfaction in her work. She could be fulfilled with the life she had now and never look to expand the boundaries of what she had.

            There was a bright light coming from the other side of her eyelids, but she wanted to keep grasping onto the memories that she had. She could be satisfied and fulfilled, but she could also desperately miss her. She wanted her back, but she could not have her. Her dreams would have to suffice, so she grasped them with both hands and tried to hold on tight to what little she had left.

            Her grip failed and her eyes opened and for a moment she felt tears well up. She wanted to pretend that it was from the light, but it was most likely from the memories that had invaded her conscious thoughts without invitation.

            “Why did you down one of our patrol planes?”

            Lexa blinked a few times and saw a man older than her with a poorly groomed goatee standing over her. She was handcuffed to a table and the man was shining the light.

            “It was an accident. I was fed bad intel.”

            “Now, I find that hard to believe.”

            “My radar was wrong. I can retrieve the records once I’m back where I belong.”

            “You’re not going anywhere. This act could be considered an act of war.”

            “My radar told me that the plane was carrying bombs, potentially nuclear ones. If it were, that would have been breaking treaty. I went on the information I had, and the information I had said that I was in the right to take your plane out of the sky.”

            “I know who you are.”

            “Do you think that intimidates me?” She asked. It was a snarky response, but true. People knowing who she was didn’t intimidate her in the slightest (although she was finding the opposite situation to be the latter).

            “Why have NAR leaders been so hesitant to share the territory around the Great Lakes region?”  
            She remained silent.

            “What do you know about Clarke Griffin? The pilot you brought down?”

            “I met her after I crashed. She stopped me from trying to walk back into NADR territory.” She squinted. “I don’t know anything about her.”

            “Have you ever had past contact with Clarke Griffin?”

            “No. How could I?”

            “You never know where personal vendettas could lead someone.” The man turned his back to her. “It would be easy for me to paint it as such.”

            “Why would you?”

            “It would allow us to hold you as a prisoner. Unless, of course you want to tell me why you won’t give up the Great Lakes territories.”

            “Who are you?”  
            He turned around. “Is that a no? You won’t tell me?”

            “I asked you a question first.”

            “You can call me Kane,” He turned back around and watched his own fingers idly drum against the table. “You should make yourself comfortable.”

            “That’s a real watertight plan you’ve got here, Kane.” Lexa squinted at him. “It’s harder than you think to engineer a crime.”

            “In the meantime, I’m having you stay with Ms. Griffin.”

            “What’s the point of that?” She fired back.

            “She told me you were quite irate around her.” He shrugged. “I have a feeling that might speed the process along.”

            “As opposed to what?”

            He remained silent. “You just give me a call when you’re ready to call it quits.” He patted her hand with faux sympathy and Lexa tried to recoil, but felt no slack. He walked out of the room without another word.

            Seconds later guards stormed into the room. She tried to stay still and quit as they installed what she assumed was a tracker on her ankle and handcuffed her hands together. They marched her out of the room and down a series of long and slightly damp tunnels.

            _I must be underground_ , she thought to herself. It didn’t make much of a difference anyways.

            People were looking at her with a morbid curiosity as they wound around more corners. They stopped in front of a door that looked mostly normal, and the guards knocked.

            “Just a moment!” She heard a call and then stumbling as the door opened.

            Clarke opened the door and for a moment Lexa was taken aback by how pretty she was. It was in an effortless way, her now clean blonde hair pulled into a loose bun on her head, and her clothes no longer military issue and hanging off her body casually. She snapped out of it a moment later.

            “Oh, fuck no.” She went to slam the door, but one of the guards caught it.

            “Your orders are to look after her until she decides to talk.”

            “No. Get her out of here.”

            “Kane made the order.”

            “I don’t care who the fuck made it, I’m not babysitting her. I’ve done enough of that already.”

            Lexa was left only held by one guard while the other moved closer and spoke quietly and rapidly to Clarke. Lexa watched the anger settle in her blue eyes and her posture tense as she nodded. Whatever the guard said to her had worked, but it didn’t mean she was any more enthusiastic.

            “Whatever, hand her over.”

            Clarke took hold of Lexa’s upper arm and the guard passed her something else as well. Clarke dragged Lexa into the room, slammed the door behind them, and undid the handcuffs.

            “I’m cuffing you while I sleep.”

            “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

            “All things considered, that sounds reasonable.” Clarke sat on the edge of her unmade bed and looked at her angrily. “The fuck did I do to deserve babysitting you?”

“You led me into a trap!”  
Clarke pinched the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t know that was going to happen! I

swear I had no idea that they were going to do that. I don’t even know who the fuck you are, but I guess you’re pretty important because people seem to have serious ants in their pants about you being here.”

            “Yeah, well if you can’t tell, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”

            Lexa sat on the ground and the two fell into an uneasy silence.

            “Who _are_ you?” Clarke asked. “I want to know why people are losing their mind now that you’re here.”

            Lexa paused and looked away. She didn’t want to tell her, she preferred the pseudo-anonymity that she had kept with Clarke. “My name is Lexa Woods.”

            “You told me that.”

            “I’m next in line to lead the NAR.”

            Clarke’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “You have to be kidding.”

            “I’m not.”

            “That’s why you were so…belligerent about me calling for help.”

            “I don’t trust you.”

            “You don’t have to.” Clarke replied. “Do you want to take a shower or something? Or want some clean clothes?”  
            Lexa squinted at her.

            “I’m not trying to trick you. I don’t like you, but I can’t have you tracking dirt all over my room.”

            “You know what? I think I’ll accept that offer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *John Mulaney voice* Now you've thrown him off his rhythm!

“So, uh,” Clarke looked anxious as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Were you going to tell me?”

            “Tell you what?” Lexa began to dry her hair off with a towel.

            “Who you were?”

            “No. I was going to go home and forget I ever met you.”

            “I wish you went home.”

            “Yeah, me too.”

            They fell silent for a moment and Lexa took the time to try and read her body language. Her uncomfortable posture and the way her eyes flicked back and forth seemed more in line with someone who was legitimately surprised to see her and to be dealing with her. Her questions were more curious and fascinated than probing, but she was still on her guard.

            “Did they say why they had me babysitting you?”

            Lexa let out a half hearted and sarcastic chuckle. “He said that he thinks I’ll crack and give him what he wants sooner.”

            “Do you have what we wants?”  
            Lexa squinted at her. It was questions like that. They made her nervous. They made her more sure that Clarke was in on this elaborate plan. It was hard to read her. They were inherently similar – they were both pilots and survivors in their own right. Clarke was smarter than her superiors thought her to be, too. That much was clear from the argument she had caught on the plane. There was a certain disregard that could not be faked.

            “No.” She lied quickly.

            “To be clear, I don’t want you here.” Clarke stood up and paced around the perimeter of the room. “I want you out of here as soon as possible.”

            “This is interrupting my studies and my training, so I want to get out of here as soon as possible. I’m glad to know we’re on the same page.”

            There was a beeping noise and Clarke’s hand rushed to her hip. She pulled out a small square, made a frustrated noise, and then began furiously typing on it. Each finger fell with increasing force before she shoved the small device back on her hip.

            “I have to go.” Clarke glanced at Lexa and then the beeping started again. She looked at it, made another noise, and typed out a short response. “Actually, never mind, _we_ have to go.”

            “Where? Why?”

            “People need to talk to me, but I’ve been instructed to bring you along.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed the handcuffs off the table that had haphazardly thrown them on earlier.

            “Do I get to know where we’re going?”

            “No.”

            Clarke reattached the cuffs to Lexa’s wrist and marched her out of the room. She wanted to roll her eyes at the other woman – the way she was holding her arms gave her room to wiggle and it left Clarke in a bad position. She could easily have overpowered her and made a run for it. She wasn’t going to, but clearly Clarke had never been trained on how to properly handle a detainee.

            They were probably walking through a residential area, all the doors looked similar to Clarke’s and there weren’t many people idly milling in the hallways. There was no distinction between the areas and she began to wonder if this whole complex was simultaneously a military base and a settlement.

            Were there schools? Were there people who weren’t military personal? There was a part of her that thought there might be. This place sure didn’t look like a military base or academy. They got into an elevator and went up a couple of levels, but it was still unclear exactly what this place was meant to be.

            The floor they stepped off on _did_ look like a military base. Uniformed personal were in the hallways and the doors were more heavily reinforced than they were downstairs. The people looked at her warily (why wouldn’t they? There was no war, but she was still technically the enemy) when she passed, many of them taking a step back in the process.

            Clarke led her into one of the rooms and gestured to one of the couches. There was a receptionist staring at her from behind her desk and her sharp glasses and Lexa couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably and look away from her awkwardly. There were voices coming from where Clarke had gone.

            “What a son of a bitch.”

            Clarke walked back out with an older woman who bore resemblance to her, and Lexa fell under the impression that the other woman was probably her mother or in some other way related to her. The other woman whispered something to Clarke and Clarke shrugged in response before laughing.

            “I can’t believe Kane is lazy enough to get you to do all of his bullshit for him.” The other woman said to Clarke and then took a step closer to Lexa.

            “I’m Abby Griffin.” She extended her hand to Lexa, but quickly realized she wouldn’t be able to shake it. “Clarke, you did an atrocious job trying to handcuff her.”

            _So they are related_ , she thought as the two bantered for a moment. She was trying not to be overly hostile, but she was growing irritated as to why she was here. Her body still felt the effects of being in a plane crash and if she was being honest all she wanted to do was go to sleep and try and formulate a plan. Unless their plan was to exhaust her until she cracked. In her current state, it might work.

            “I heard you crashed your plan into my daughter’s.” She was circling Lexa and she looked like she was examining her. Her tone wasn’t threatening or accusatory, but rather a statement of the facts. “I also heard that your plane crashed in the process.”

            “That sounds right.” Abby didn’t seem like a particularly threatening person, but the way she was moving around her and speaking to her made her nervous and her voice come out weaker than intended. “How are you feeling? You might not be feeling the extent of some of your injuries due to stress.”

            She poked one of Lexa’s ribs and she inhaled sharply as a stabbing pain ran through her side. Now that she mentioned it, she had been avoiding raising her arms in the shower, and there was a constant pain in her shoulders that she had simply assumed was because of the constantly cuffing and uncuffing of her hands.

            “Did that hurt?”

            “Yes.”

            “I can’t tell if it’s broken or bruised, I’m going to have to do some scans. You look like you came out of the crash worse than Clarke did.” She couldn’t tell what Abby was trying to imply with the last statement. “Also I’m one of the surgeons here.” Clarke gestured for Lexa to stand up and follow them behind the counter. “If you were wondering.”

            “I, uh…” The whole situation was just awkward to her.

            They stepped into a room filled with different equipment. “I need to scan you. Clarke, I need you to take off the handcuffs, they’ll interfere with the X-Ray.”

            “Kane said…” Clarke started awkwardly, and it was the most she had spoken since they had gotten there.

            “Fuck whatever he said.” Abby said bluntly. “I can restrain her myself if I have to.”

            Clarke made a face that looked mostly displeased before unlocking the handcuffs around Lexa’s wrists. Her arms fell slack against her sides and she couldn’t help but sigh was the strain was released.

            “Have your arms been hurting?” Abby gestured to the table and Lexa lied down on it, trying her best to comply. She wasn’t stupid enough to ignore when she needed medical attention, and if they were willing to at least give her _something_ she would take it.

            “Yes, but I’ve been handcuffed for the better part of the past day.”

            “Hm,” Abby stepped over to one of the computers and the lighting in the room shut off. “Where has the pain been in your arms?”

            “Shoulders and elbows, mostly.” She had managed to tune out the pain foe the most part before now, but she was starting to realize how much pain she had actually been in.

            “The scan will tell us if it’s something we have to be worried about.” She opened a drawer and passed two pairs of glasses to Clarke. “Clarke, can you put these on her?”

            Clarke complied and put dark glasses over her eyes before fitting them over her own. Abby had a pair over her eyes as well.

            “We’re good.” Clarke said.

            Abby clicked a few things on the computer and suddenly a bright blue light filled the room, emanating from plate about where she was lying. Even with the glasses it was too bright to keep her eyes open and she squinted as the light passed over her body four times. As quickly as it had started the light turned off and Abby turned the light back on in the room.

            Clarke took the glasses off of her and handed them back to her mom (it was probably her mom, the more she thought about it) and she blinked a couple times, trying to adjust to the light.

            “Now that you’ve been scanned, we’ll be able to see if you have any breaks, or potential internal issues. I have a feeling that you’re not feeling the full extent of your injuries.”

            Abby pulled up a picture on a large screen and Lexa immediately realized that it was _her_. They had managed to take a full body X-Ray of her and Lexa propped herself up to get a better look.

            “There’s good news,” She started. “I don’t see any breaks or fractures.”

            “Well that’s good.”

            “That’s _lucky_.” Abby corrected her. “But there’s some pretty serious bruising around your ribs, shoulders, and elbows. I’m not surprised there and I don’t think you are either.”

            “I’m not.”

            “I’m going to recommend to Kane to find another way to _restrain_ you, though. I can’t recommend that they keep putting unnecessary strain on your shoulders and ribs.”

            “Thank you.”

            “You don’t have to. It’s my job to make sure you come out of this in the same singular piece you came in as.”

            “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

            “It’s just my job, no need to thank me.” She put the glasses back in the drawer. “Clarke, can you go get me a blank patient file?”

            “Kane said…”

            “Clarke.”

            “I’ll be right back.”

            Clarke left the room and Abby sighed. Lexa remained still on the bench, trying not to intrude in a place that was clearly not her own.

            “Why did you down her plane?” She asked without turning around.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Why did you take down Clarke’s plane?” She slammed the drawer shut. “You came down in the process, too.”

            “I did.”

            “Why did you do it?”

            Lexa’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “My radar said that she was carrying nuclear bombs.”

            “But she was on patrol.”

            “I got bad information.”

            Abby turned around and leaned back against the desk. “Don’t tell them anything.”

            “What?”

            “I believe you, but don’t tell them anything. Hell, don’t tell me anything. If you keep your mouth shut, you’ll get out of here. I don’t know who brought you in or what they told you…”

            “It was Kane.”

            “Whatever he said to you was a lie.” Abby glanced toward the door. “I know who you are.”

            “Most people here do.”

            “Then you know your value right now.”

            “I do.”

            “Then take my advice and keep your mouth shut.”

            “Okay.”

            Clarke burst back through the door and Lexa suddenly felt extremely dizzy. Nothing was making sense anymore, and as Clarke and Abby began to speak quietly and then left the room, she started to get the feeling that things were about to go very, very wrong for her.

            There was a good chance Abby was lying to her. There was a good chance that everyone here was lying to her, but the advice made sense considering how many things had gone wrong. She was going to keep her mouth shut for as long as she could. She suspected that her life and many other’s depended on it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter y'all  
> Sorry for not replying to any of the comments on the last chapter, my finals hit and I got wicked sick and just didn't have the energy to respond, but I read all of them! And I'm enjoying the feedback!

Lexa was back in Clarke’s room and found herself sitting on the floor, unsure of what to do. Clarke was sitting at her desk angrily typing on a computer and glancing over at Lexa intermittently. Her blue eyes were ultra focused on what she was doing and with nothing else to do, Lexa found herself captivated by her.

            “Thanks to you, I have to put all of my studies and training on hold.” Clarke spun around in the chair and looked at Lexa. “Are you really just going to stubbornly hold out until they let you go?”        

            “Is my capture inconvenient for you?”

            “I don’t know, but knocking me out of the sky sure was.”

            “I’m sorry that I knocked you out of the sky! I don’t know what else you want me to say to you.”

            “I want you out of here so I can continue on with my life!”

            “Hey, I don’t want to be here either!”

            “Then just tell them what they want to hear! Go home!”

            “I very well can’t do that.”

            Clarke made an angry noise. “And now I can’t even go anywhere without you! I can’t believe I’m fucking stuck with you _again_!”

            “Again, I don’t want to be here either!”

            Clarke made her way from her desk to her bed and sat down on the edge of it. “Did your radar really tell you that I had nuclear bombs?”

            The anger and frustration in her voice was palpable. Lexa wasn’t sure how she should respond. She wasn’t sure what she could tell Clarke that would placate her. She could lie and say that she had knocked her out of the sky, which was not true and would make her angrier. She could tell the truth, but she wasn’t sure Clarke would believe it.

            “It did.”

            Clarke looked angry for a second before sighing. “Yeah I guess…I guess you wouldn’t have almost killed yourself in the process if you didn’t think something was wrong.”

            “Is everything okay?” Clarke had been acting strangely since she had talked to her mom.

            “I mean…” Clarke shook her head. “I need to get something done.” She stood up abruptly. “I’m locking the door from the outside. Don’t touch anything when I’m gone.”

            “Where are you going?”

            “Why do you care?” She fired back. “I’ll bring back food with me, okay? Just don’t fuck anything up.”

            “I…”

            “You won’t.” Clarke finished the sentence and walked out of the room angrily.

            Lexa was both relieved and nervous to have the other girl gone. At least to her it was obvious that something had transpired between Clarke and her mom when she had gone in for the scan. She wondered if Abby had told Clarke what she had told her, but she had no real way of being sure.

            She gingerly stood up, trying not to further aggravate her ribs and leaned against the wall. Clarke had told her not to touch anything, but she had the urge to find out more about the blonde woman. She was mysterious in an alluring way and she wanted to know more about her.

            The more time that passed since the accident, the more her adrenaline wore off, and the worse she felt her injuries. It took effort and leaning against the walls to get full standing and then it took extra effort to avoid all the clothes haphazardly strewn over the floor. It seemed specifically designed to make it more difficult to move around.

            How was Clarke still unaffected by the crash? She seemed like she had barely suffered a scratch from the collision. For a while it had felt like she had escaped unscathed as well, and she was wondering if it would catch up to the other girl.

            She glanced into the bathroom where she had been earlier, but had neglected to get a good look at. It was a stark difference from the rest of her room – the bathroom was immaculate and bright white. She stumbled in and began to open drawers. She found some pill bottles, but they were prescription. She found regular issue soap, tissues, and other simple odds and ends. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her bathroom except for how much cleaner it was.

            Her room had a tall dresser, a bed, a desk, and a bedside table. There was a hamper next to the dresser, but it was empty. _No surprise there, most of the clothes were on the floor_ , she thought to herself before laughing for a moment.

            She began to open the dresser drawers and was surprised to find neatly folded and pressed shirts in the top drawer. They were a far cry from what she had been wearing today, though. The ones that were in the drawer must be apart of uniform. The next drawer had pressed and folded pants.

            The rest of the drawers had an indiscriminant mixture of clothing that was balled up and shoved down as hard as possible. Lexa couldn’t help but smile, this seemed more like what Clarke’s clothing drawers would look like. She wanted to sift through them to see if they were hiding something, but the drawers were too tightly packed for her to go through without making a noticeable mess.

            The room was noticeably devoid of personal touches, but the more she stayed in the room the more she noticed how different it was from her own. The lights weren’t cold and fluorescent like her own, but rather warm and with a slight yellowish tint. The furniture was clearly Government Issue, but the bed was big enough for two people and Clarke clearly had clothes that would be considered non-standard.

            All of her clothes were Government Issue. Her bed was barely big enough for her to comfortably fit in. It was such a stark change from what she was used to, but it wasn’t a bad one. She walked over to the bed and pushed her hand down on it experimentally and found her hand to sink into the material.

            To Clarke (and to everyone else here), the way she lived must seem dramatically different. Her life didn’t seem bad or restrictive to her, but to anyone else – it must have. Clarke’s room was further evidence to her that this was not a military base. She knew that places outside where she lived looked more like Clarke’s room.

            _Was Clarke considered military?_ She wondered as she opened Clarke’s desk drawers. There was a set of dog tags in the top drawer and she picked them up and turned them over in her hands. They were inscribed with the name ‘Jake Griffin’ and had codes that she didn’t know how to decipher. The way they were encoded seemed almost archaic, and the notion of dog tags was archaic in itself. Her eyebrows knitted together as she looked at them. Where did they come from? Whose dog tags were these?

            She set them back down in the drawer and opened it all the way to see if there was anything else in there. There wasn’t, it seemed like this was a small monument to the mysterious tags. The rest of the desk drawers were filled with scrap paper and notebooks. They mostly seemed old and full of regular arithmetic and vague history studies.

            The third desk drawer was empty so she made her way over to the bedside table. It only had one drawer. Lexa sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the drawer. There was a set of glasses, some pencils, a couple sketches, and an old paper photo.

            Lexa picked the photo up carefully; the paper must have been fragile after so much time. She hadn’t seen a paper photo since she was very little and even then she wasn’t sure if she had dreamt the whole experience.

            The picture had Abby in it, except she was much younger and looked more like Clarke. She was in a white dress and hugging a man who _also_ managed to look like Clarke. He was in a military uniform and they were smiling directly at the camera. She turned the photo over and saw ‘Griffin wedding’ with an illegible date written in faded pen.

            Where was Clarke’s dad? This had to be her parents on their wedding day, but she couldn’t tell how long ago it was. She went to gently set the photo down, she suddenly felt like she had seen something she shouldn’t have. Just as she was about to close the bedside drawer, the bedroom door swung open.

            “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *Gets so caught up in the political thriller plot that I lowkey forget I'm also supposed to be writing a love story*  
> Anyways, thanks for the support. You guys are crazy cool :)

Lexa slammed the bedside drawer closed and stood up as Clarke stormed across the room towards her. There was no two ways about it – Clarke had caught her snooping through her room. The feeling that she had seen more than she was supposed to sank deeper into her stomach as she tried to think of an excuse, but nothing came to mind.

            “I…”

            “You what?” Clarke was getting more agitated by the moment. “You were going through my stuff? After I said not to? What the fuck could you have to gain through that?”

            “I…”

            “What did you see?”

            “Nothing!”

            “Bullshit! What did you see?”

            “You have pictures. Paper pictures. I saw that you have pictures.”

            “And?”

            “Is Jake your father?”

            Clarke’s lower lip trembled and she looked away from Lexa momentarily. “I’d tell you to get the fuck out of here, but I’m legally not allowed to let you leave.”

            “Okay, so clearly something is happening here, but can we continue with the original plan?”

            Lexa and Clarke looked over and there was a young woman about Clarke’s age standing in the doorway. Her dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail and her arms were crossed firmly over her chest. She was holding a small black box that looked like a plastic briefcase.

            “To be continued.” Clarke stood up and walked towards the other woman. “This is Raven Reyes.”

            “Lexa Woods, nice to meet you.” Lexa stood up and extended her hand.

            “I wish I was here under better circumstances, you can sit back down.” Raven walked over and Lexa sat back down on the bed.

            “Raven is a mechanic and a close friend.” Clarke explained and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I have been talking with my mother and with Raven. We’re going to be doing some light investigating. Maybe we can get you out of here faster that way.”

            Raven kneeled in front of Lexa and opened the plastic case. It was filled with tools of various sizes and purposes.

            “Can I see that bracelet you have around your ankle?” She asked.

            “Yeah, of course.”

            Raven grabbed her leg and pushed the pant leg up her calf, exposing the chunky anklet she was wearing. Lexa watched her twisted it around until the bulky part was facing Raven and the other woman grabbed what looked like a small screwdriver. She began to unscrew the plating on the anklet and set the screws down beside her.

            “So what’s going on here?” Lexa asked as she looked at Clarke, who was looking unhappier by the second.

            “We need to know what we’re up against so then we can work to get this thing off of you. Once this is off of you, then we can work on getting you out of here.” Clarke explained. She still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You said they’re trying to leverage information out of you?”

            “Kane wants information out of me.”

            “Must be inflammatory information, then.” Raven interjected. “Sounds like Kane wants to start a war against the NAR, which is the last thing that any of us want.”

            “I’m trained for combat, but I have a strong preference to never have to use that training.” Lexa leaned back on her elbows as Raven continued to fiddle with the anklet.

            “You didn’t have any qualms about knocking me out of the sky.” Clarke grumbled.

            “I had reason to believe you were an active threat!”

            “Arguing doesn’t help anything now.” Raven mumbled through the screwdriver she was holding between her teeth. “You’re both here now and you’re both tangled up in something large and out of your control.”

            “Raven.” Clarke said suddenly and she looked up from her work at Clarke.

            “Yes?” Raven dropped the screwdriver from her mouth and Lexa stifled a laugh.

            “Is it possible to jam or otherwise mislead a radar reading?”

            Lexa perked up at Clarke’s question. It was a valid one for sure, and one that she had been wondering herself. There was a part of her that was beginning to wonder if the mishap with her radar was done purposefully. She had no doubt that certain things here were a trap and were otherwise orchestrated, but she wondered how far they went. Was the misreading of her radar a genuine mistake or something more purposefully?  
            “Oh, it’s ridiculously easy.” Raven answered. “They’re just electromagnetic waves. It would be so easy to change how it was reading with magnets or something like that.”

            “Really? How would you do it?” Lexa asked.

            “Powerful earth magnets.” Raven responded matter-of-factly. “Not only would they mess with the readings, but they would also cause the plane’s internals to act differently. The enemy would get an off reading _and_ the plane would be flying funny, too. It would practically be guaranteed that the plane would be shot out of the sky.”

            “Huh. Sounds easy.” Clarke shook her head.

            Raven began to work again. “Well, earth magnets are hard to come by nowadays. A lot of scientific equipment is.”

            “Why would someone want to do that?” Clarke asked, but it seemed mostly like she was thinking out loud.

            _Why would someone want to start a war?_ Lexa thought to herself. It was likely Kane suspected the illegal bases in the Great Lakes Territory and that alone was enough to start a war between the NAR and the NADR. Did they have the troops to start a war? Could they sustain fighting?

            The only thing the NAR truly had to gain was land and resources. If they had unfettered access to the Great Lakes Territory then they gained massive sources of fresh water and land that could potentially be razed and farmed on. Did they want redemption for past losses? Did they want to prove a point?

            She wholeheartedly disagreed with the existence of the illegal bases in the Great Lakes Territory, but construction on them had begun before she had any political power. She was rising in the ranks and now she was worried that these bases would become a prolonged source of tension and conflict. It was likely by time she was leading the NAR with full power that the NADR would be looking to pick another fight over the suspected bases.

            “Who knows?” Raven set more screws off to the side. “Kane probably wants control of all of North America.”

            “What a jackass.” Clarke mused.

            “I’m happy to report that there is no recording device in this anklet.” Raven said. “It’s definitely tracking you, though.”

            “How do you know there’s no recorder?” Lexa asked, leaning forward.

            “Well I would’ve seen something that could have acted as a microphone by now, and there isn’t one here. There isn’t one directly on the logic board either. There’s literally no way for it to take input that way. It _is_ however clearly using a tracker, but it’s not GPS based because mostly of the satellites are no longer functional.”

            “So how does it work?”

            “It’s definitely transmitting to _something_ so I bet that it’s giving a location based on relative positions to other receivers in this base. If you get far enough away from the base, it’ll no longer be able to give a reading. It’s simple, but they’d be able to triangulate your location in the base. They’d catch you quickly, but only if someone tipped them off that you were trying to escape.”

            “So you’re saying I can just walk out of here?”

            “No. The base has heavy security. You’d look suspicious and lost if you tried to escape without an escort.”

            “I could escort.” Clarke volunteered.

            “Well you’d want to time it when there were the least amount of guards. You’d want to take off the anklet at the last second, because I’m sure alarms would be tripped if you left with it still on. And even if you did get out, we’re not close to the border. You’d need a plan.” Raven explained. “It’s going to be pretty complicated.”

            “Will you help us?” Clarke asked.

            “I have reasons to believe the NADR is trying to engineer a war against the NAR.” Lexa explained. “The longer I’m here, the more tensions are going to boil.”

            Raven looked down for a moment before smiling. “This is treason.”

            “Technically, I guess.”

            “I’m down. I’ve been bored recently, anyways.”

            Lexa breathed a sigh of relief. “How long do you think this will take?”

            “Well, I think we should start making a real plan. This isn’t going to be easy.”

            “How long?” Clarke reiterated.

            “Once we make a plan? Ideally I wouldn’t want it to take longer than a week – two weeks at the most.”

            “So we just have to pretend that everything is normal for two weeks.” Lexa said. “That’s probably easier said than done.”

            “This whole _plan_ will be easier said than done.” Raven answered. “Clarke, your mom…”

            “Can help us.”

            “Great.” There was a beeping sound and Raven reached for her hip, looking at a small device. “I have to go do my actual job.”

            “When can you meet next?” Clarke asked.

            “Tomorrow night, late so that there’s less of a chance of being seen. I’ll start seeing what I can do now, though.”

            “Thanks, Raven.” Clarke gave her a quick hug when they both stood up.

            “Thank you for the help.” Lexa pulled her pant leg back down and stood up as well. “This means a lot.”

            “Don’t mention it.” Raven bucked her tool case back together. “Another war wouldn’t benefit me, either. I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

            Raven slipped out the door and as she left, Clarke turned to face Lexa. “Why were you going through my drawers?”

            “I wasn’t…”

            “Oh come on, don’t bullshit me. I know you saw some of the pictures I have.”

            She fell silent for a moment, unsure how to respond. “Your father isn’t here anymore, is he?”

            Clarke looked away. “No. Then again, not many people’s are. Where are your parents?”

            “I don’t know.” Lexa admitted. “I never knew them.”

            “Did they die in the war?” Clarke sat down at her desk.

            “I don’t know.”

            “How do you just…not know?”

            “A lot of the people in the leadership positions are orphans. The ones who aren’t are the children of people already in leadership positions. They take the ones with the highest aptitudes from primary school. The rest of them become foot soldiers and carry out other menial tasks.”

            Clarke fell silent. “That’s…intense.”

            “I’ve never thought about it like that.” That was true. She had never really thought about the way her upbringing must appear to other people. To her, it had always been her life, and it had always been the way that things were done. It never seemed odd to her.

            “How’d you become a pilot?”

            “I’ve always liked flying and the sky. I chose it.”

            “Me too.”

            For a second their eyes met, and Lexa felt like they had something in common other than desperation for Lexa to leave. It was odd that she opened up about her life, but she considered much of her early life to be mostly common knowledge. There was a little bit of tension between the two of them with the revelation that they had both chosen to be pilots, and Clarke quickly shattered it.

            “Are you hungry?” She asked and Lexa shook herself out of a slight trance.

            “Yeah, actually.” She said, relieved that Clarke mentioned it.

            “We can go get some if you want.”

            “That’d be great.”

            The two of them left the room and Lexa walked behind Clarke through the halls. She was going to get out of here. She was going to go home. This would be all over quickly, but she knew that there was a part of her that would never be able to shake the intimacy of seeing how the other side lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com, per the usual


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! I'm on summer break now! Which means more frequent updates! Yay! If any of you guys have preferences for when I update (frequency, day, etc) feel free to drop that down in the comments and let me know. Otherwise, I'll hopefully have a proper schedule set for myself by the next update :)  
> Thank you all for the continued support as always, I love writing in this AU, and I'm glad that I'm finally getting the chance to write Clexa stuff (even if I'm 3 years late to the party).

“Sorry that I don’t have anything else prepared.” Clarke shifted nervously from foot to foot as Lexa looked at the pile of blankets she had set up on the floor. “I’m sure you’re used to better.”

            “No, no thank you.” She sat down on the blankets. “What is the plan for tomorrow?”

            Clarke sat on the bed and shrugged. “I have some classwork I have to do from here. Raven is coming in the evening so we can start talking about details to get you out of here.”

            “Is your mom in on this?” She asked as Clarke lay down on her bed.

            “Why do you ask?”

            For a moment, Lexa debated on whether or not to tell Clarke what her mom had told her. Abby had warned against telling anyone, but now that Clarke was actively trying to break her out, maybe now was the time? It would make sense if Clarke and Abby would work together – Abby was a surgeon and that meant that she most likely had more administrative pull.

            “When we went to see her, she talked to me.”

            Clarke was silent for a moment and a shred of worry settled in Lexa’s stomach.

            “She thinks there’s a higher conspiracy as to why you’re here.” Clarke stated dryly.

            “I know.”

            “Yes, my mom is in on this.” Clarke admitted. “She doesn’t want all out more any more than we do.”

            “Yeah.” Lexa agreed quietly.

            “I’m going to sleep now.”

            “Okay.”

            Clarke fell silent and Lexa found herself staring at the ceiling. She pulled one of the blankets around herself and continued to keep her eyes trained on the white ceiling. There was a lot to process about what was happening. Clarke was willing to commit _treason_ in order to get her home. This was more than Clarke being fed up with Lexa, that couldn’t be the only reason that she was helping her escape.

            She personally suspected that Kane wanted to use her to start a war. He seemed like the war-mongering type and he had land and resources to gain from starting and winning a war. The NAR was prepped to go into war if necessary, but it was a last resort for sure.

            Clarke was sharp. Clearly she was feeling a little more hospitable after talking to her mom and Raven. She suspected that Clarke was the kind of person who could see the bigger picture, and she was pleasantly surprised to see her predictions coming true. She was a natural born leader.

            It made her wonder why Clarke wasn’t in a leadership position. She didn’t _know_ of course, but she could guess simply from what she had observed around the base so far that Clarke was not in a leadership position. She was simply trying to work her way up the ranks in her respective Air Force.

            Clarke was intriguing to say the least. Her eyes were bright and aware, no matter what it felt like she was always watching. She kept paper photographs with illegible writing on the back, and was willing to commit treason in order to keep the continent away from the brink of destruction. She was something else. She was unlike anyone she was working with or friends with in the NAR.

            There was no doubt in her mind that Clarke Griffin was special.

            She slowly drifted off, her eyes fluttering shut as she tried to sight sleep until finally her eyes shut, and she fell asleep. For a long time she had suffered from recurring nightmares. They became increasingly easier to block out, but erasing them was never going to be entirely possible.

            There were a variety of the nightmares, but the most vivid wasn’t necessarily a nightmare, but rather a memory that would play on repeat in the back of her mind. She suspected she would never fully be rid of the movie reel of moments that she could never seem to stop from playing.

            It was the day that Costia had died. She was supposed to be going on a regular patrol. It was a routine flight maneuver. They were going to _talk_ when she got back, she had so many things she wanted to tell Costia, and they were going to remain unsaid. So many things had transpired between them and it had become complicated. They had said goodbye that morning, although at the time she had considered it more of a ‘see you later’, and Lexa had made her way to the air traffic control tower in order to complete some assignments in the meantime.

            The assignments were easy, but she was anxious and in no hurry. She had to finish everything before she could muster up the courage to talk to Costia.

            She was in the tower when it happened.

            A panicked radio transmission came through and Lexa’s ears had perked up when she heard Costia’s voice. There was an enemy plane on her tail that had shot out one of her engines and was going for another. She had tried to communicate with the vessel, but with no response. She was trying to head back towards the airfield, but the pursuit continued and she continued to describe the enemy plane with more detail.

            At that point she had set down her assignments and ran towards the air traffic controllers, desperate to send a message to her. She had grabbed the microphone in her hand and was ready to send a message – anything really. The sounds of shots fired were becoming louder over the radio as other attendants tried desperately to contact the other plane. She was ready to say anything, but there was a sudden sound of an explosion and a jumble of sound before the room was filled with static.

            “Costia?” She spoke quietly into the microphone as alarms went off in the room and attendants began to scramble for phones.

            There was no response.

            She let the microphone fall out of her hands as more important people rushed into the room. She was pushed aside and then later taken with the people training her to see the wreckage.

            There was almost nothing there to see. There were the charred remains of the plane chassis, but not much else. The black box had been destroyed in the incident. Different people began to lecture her on the importance of crash investigation, but their words fell on deaf ears.

            She had been shot down by a rogue NADR pilot looking to incite a conflict. They were never able to track his plane, or find out who the pilot was.

            Lexa woke up with a start, her heart hammering in her chest. What had happened two years ago still felt like it could have happened yesterday. It was still unnervingly clear to her what had happened, and what she had lost.

            There was a nagging in the back of her brain that Clarke had almost been Costia. She had almost wrongfully killed someone, an accident albeit, but her mistake almost cost Clarke her life. She had her mom, she had Raven, and Lexa didn’t doubt that there were others too.

            She tried to control her breathing and calm down. It was still late to the best of her knowledge, and she wanted to go back to bed. She pulled the blankets around her tighter and her exhaustion continued to get the better of her as her insides churned at the thought of what _almost_ could have come to pass.

            When she woke up for the second time, most of the lights in the room were on. She opened her eyes slowly and glanced over towards Clarke’s bed and saw her lying back on some pillows and typing absently on something that looked almost like green glass.

            “Good morning.” Clarke said without looking over. “How did you sleep?”

            “Good, thank you.”

            “Do you want some coffee? I know it’s the afternoon…”

            “What time is it?”

            “Four in the afternoon.”

            “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

            Clarke shrugged. “I was asleep until an hour ago as well. I didn’t want to wake you up if it wasn’t necessary.”

            “I’ll accept coffee if you’re offering, though.”

            She sat up and then slowly rose to her feet, accepting the hot mug from Clarke. She sat on the edge of her bed as Clarke climbed back over to her computer and continued typing. She wasn’t sure what the appropriate protocol was here, or if she should say anything.

            “Raven is coming over later.”

            “Great, that’s great.”

            “So have I told you about how much of an asshole Kane is?” Clarke asked, setting aside her computer.

            “You mean the guy who interrogated me?”

            “Yeah and his right-hand-man Bellamy, the one who drugged you on the helicopter.”

            “I mean I could’ve guessed that Kane was an asshole on my own.”

            “Yeah well,” Clarke took a sip out of her mug and for a moment Lexa found her gaze lingering on her lips longer than they should have. “He’s the worst. I’ve been talking with some people. He’s war mongering. He wants to send the NAR and the NADR into war in order to take control of North America.”

            “I suspected that as well. My best guess would be that he wants to either leverage me for information or use me as a pawn to start this war.”

            “And obviously, no one wants that.”

            “Obviously.”

            “So the plan is to get you out of here as quickly and quietly as possible. And don’t get killed or arrested in the process.”

            “That sounds like a good plan.” Lexa nodded and took a sip of her own coffee.

            “Raven is going to help us bypass some security systems and tracking systems in the planes. My mom can keep Kane distracted, we just have to get out.”

            “How are you planning on getting out without arousing suspicion?”

            “In two nights I will take my friend Octavia’s patrol. Instead of her leaving, we will be flying out. Raven will hijack the tracker in the plane and you can give me directions back to the base. Then we hope that the NAR doesn’t shoot us down.”

            “If we radio into the tower, we can ask for permission to land.”

            “Okay.” Clarke took a sip of her coffee and Lexa followed suit. “We can talk to Raven later about some of the other logistics.”

            “Do you trust Raven?” She asked suddenly, and Clarke looked up in confusion.

            “With my life.”

            She looked into Clarke’s eyes and saw conviction and strength. She nodded in solidarity towards her. Clarke set her cup down and slid off the bed and walked towards the bathroom before turning back to look at Lexa.

            “Do you want a change of clothes?” Clarke asked.

            “I don’t want to trouble you any more…”

            “Is that a yes?”

            “Yes, I would like a change of clothes.”

            Clarke stepped into her bathroom and a moment later stepped out with a grey short-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark pants. “I think these will fit. You can change in the bathroom.”

            “Thanks.” She took the clothes and closed the bathroom door behind her, quickly changing.

            The shirt fit well and the pants were a little tight, but they fit well enough for the time being. She still had her own shoes and she slipped them on before pulling her hair into a messy ponytail.

            “You need to stay close to me. We’re not going far.” Clarke said as she set a few miscellaneous objects down on the counter.

            “Where are we going?”

            “Need to pick up some food and my uniform has been washed for like a week now.”

            “Okay.”

            Lexa followed Clarke out of her room and down the hallways. They were mostly empty in the late afternoon and she stayed most silent as Clarke picked up her food and her uniform (and she found herself wanting to see Clarke wearing it). There were a few lone people staring curiously at her, but she was happy to have it mostly quiet.

            When Clarke opened the door to her room Lexa could see Raven sitting cross-legged on the bed. She followed Clarke back in and closed the door behind them, fumbling with the lock.

            “So I have a plan.” Raven said as Clarke began setting items down and Lexa eyed Raven carefully. “Do you want to hear it?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a long chapter. Things be happening. More things be happening in the future.  
> All the things!  
> Thank you for the support, the feedback, the comments, and the ideas. A permanent worry I have is that people won't like this fic because of how plot driven it is and everyone telling me the contrary means the world. And don't worry, we're not close to done yet. I know where I want this to go and how I want it to end, but I'm not sure how many chapters it'll take to get there yet. As always thank you for the support, let me know what you think, and enjoy!  
> (This chapter is a bit of a long boi)

“Yes!” Lexa’s sudden outburst surprised her before she took a moment to compose herself. “Yes, please.”

            “Okay so Octavia agreed to let you take the shift, but not to tell anyone.” Raven explained to Clarke. “So you’ll need to take her plane.”

            “What does that mean for you?” Clarke asked. “Also can I get you anything?”

            “I’m okay for now, and what does that mean for me? It means that I have to install something in Octavia’s plane to disable the tracker. I’ll also disable the cameras in the hangar and the hallways. You’ll probably have about five minutes to get to the hangar, and then another five to get in the plane and get out.”

            “Is that enough time?” Lexa asked.

            “It should be.” Clarke responded.

            “Well I don’t think I can do any better, so it better be enough.”

            “Alright.” Lexa nodded and she watched Clarke stray towards a corner of the room absently.

            “Will I have to disable the tracker manually?” Clarke looked over as she asked.

            “What do you think would trip the least amount of alarms?”

            “I’m not sure, to be totally honest. If we disable it from the get-go we can have Octavia send in a maintenance report saying that something was wrong with her tracker. I can just go back in and fix what I broke then.”

            “How trustworthy is this Octavia person?” Lexa asked. “I don’t mean to sound overly suspicious, but there’s a lot on the line here.”

            “She’s a NAR sympathizer.” Clarke said. “I just realized that could come off the wrong way, but she’s very against going to war. She knows this will most likely prevent war from breaking out, even though she doesn’t know the details. She’s not going to tell anyone.”

            Lexa glanced at Raven.

            “Octavia isn’t going to tell anyone. Besides, she would love the chance to undermine Bellamy.” Raven laughed.

            “Octavia is Bellamy’s younger sister.” Clarke explained. “They’re, uh, diametrically opposed to say the least.”

            “I want to confirm the final plan with you guys so that I can start working on this. Clarke, you’re going to take Octavia’s patrol tomorrow night. You have a five-minute safety window to get to the hangar and then another five minutes to take off. I’ll disable the plane’s tracker so that you can safely get Lexa back into NAR territory. Then you’re going to hustle back here as fast as possible and I’ll fabricate some security footage to make it look like you did not just step out of a plane.”

            “Sounds like a plan.” Clarke nodded and Lexa quickly followed suit.

            “I really hope we don’t start an all out war on the continent.” Raven shook her head. “Also your mom said that she can keep Kane and Bellamy tied up.”

            “You talked to my mom today?”

            Raven shrugged. “I ran into her.”

            Clarke narrowed her eyes, but seemed to let the subject drop. “And you’re still okay with breaking the law?”

            “I live for a challenge. And also an all out war really sounds inconvenient as hell. Not to mention I hate Kane and Bellamy and all of his other lackeys. I’m not going to lose here as long as you two don’t fuck it up.”

            “Got it!” Clarke gave a thumbs up and a cocky smile that showed her teeth.

            “I think I can manage that.” Lexa gave a weak smile, but if she was being honest with herself, she was unbearably nervous. She was sneaking out of enemy territory aided by the person who was supposed to be her captor and with the help of generous friends of said captor.

            The plan wasn’t watertight by any means. There was room for error, room for people to fuck up, and room for people to have a last minute change of heart. This plan was better than no plan though, and she doubted that those in power would be content leaving her to her own devices for much longer.

            That being said Clarke was alluring in a way she didn’t understand. She wanted to trust her, wanted to believe the sincerity that she hold, and that she believed she held. She was brilliant and daring and she could feel herself being drawn towards her inexplicably. Clarke was like her in so many ways, but different in so many others as well. The Venn Diagram they occupied was incredibly strange.

            “Lexa,” Raven held out her hand. “I hope I’m not ever on the wrong side of you.”

            She was still disoriented from thinking about Clarke, but she managed to take Raven’s hand. “I hope it doesn’t ever come to that.”

            “I’m going to get to work now. If anything comes up or I need anything I’ll get in touch with Clarke.”

            “I’ll keep my eye on it.” Clarke winked at Raven and the other girl rolled her eyes in faux annoyance.

            “You better! All of our asses are on the line here.”

            “Thanks for the reminder.” Lexa replied dryly.

            “Good luck!” Raven saluted and paraded out the door to Clarke’s room.

            Lexa remained silent for a moment before sitting on the edge of Clarke’s bed. It was still unmade from the night before and it sank a bit under her weight. Clarke began to slowly put things away where they belonged and she watched her curiously. Clarke was anxious, that much was obviously. The way she was pacing like she needed constant movement was almost a dead giveaway, but her hands were also violently shaking. She was avoiding her gaze too, which she wasn’t sure whether or not it was intentional, but she made a note of it.

            “Clarke, are you okay?” She asked softly after she couldn’t take any more of her anxious pacing.

            “Yeah, why?”

            “You seem…anxious.”

            Clarke stopped pacing for a moment. “I’m okay, but thank you for asking.” She flashed a smile. “Do you want to get dinner? I can show you around a little.”

            “Are you sure? You don’t have to.” She assured her.

            “It’s no bother, I just thought maybe you’d like to see some of the base.”

            “If you’re willing to show me, I’d love if you gave me a tour.”

            “I mean obviously I can’t show you everything.”

            “That’s okay, that’s okay.” Lexa smiled. “What is this place, anyways?”

            “What do you mean?” Clarke asked.

            “Is this a military base?” Clarke opened the door to her room and turned around to look at Lexa. The hallway lights were backlighting Clarke and illuminated the outer edge of her blonde hair.

            “No?” Lexa followed Clarke out into the hallway. “I mean sort of, it’s kind of complicated. This isn’t a full-blown military installation, but it has an academy and Kane is here sometimes too.”

            “But non-military personnel live here?”

            “It’s mostly non-military personnel.”

            Lexa nodded. “So it’s an underground civilian base?”

            “And academy, but yeah.” Clarke nodded in agreement.

            “I’ve never seen a set up like that.” Lexa mused as they entered a larger common space.

            “Really?” Clarke sat down at a table for two and Lexa sat across from her, watching her carefully.

            “It’s just…strange.”

            “I’ll grab you something to eat and then you can tell me all about the NAR. Don’t go anywhere.”

            “I wouldn’t dream of it.” She rolled her eyes in response.

            There was almost no one in the area and Lexa was taken aback by how empty it was. If this was a civilian base, where was everyone? It was unlikely that Clarke was lying based on what she had observed from being around. She watched a couple lone people walk towards where Clarke had gone to get food.

            She was excited to leave. No, excited was the wrong word. She was definitely anxious to leave, she needed to go home, and she needed to share what she knew. She knew that certain NADR leaders were trying to incite war. She had to put a stop to that and do something.

            There were her advisers, the people who trained her, and she was hoping that maybe she would get to assume a true position of power. She had been told for years now that she was to become their leader. She was going to take control of the entire NAR, and it was hopefully going to be for the best.

            She knew she wouldn’t forget her time here. It was going to change her judgment forever most likely, and in her mind she thought that it was most likely going to be for the better. She was by no means happy to be held captive as a prisoner, but the change in perspective was interesting and kind of refreshing if she was being honest.

            And then there was Clarke.

            For as long as she could remember, everyone had always wanted something out of her. She was always wary about people around her in the NAR, around anyone who knew who she was, because it always turned out that they were trying to get something. They were trying to climb the ladder, they were trying to gain leverage, they wanted _bragging rights_ , but not Clarke.

            Her and Clarke’s introduction had been her knocking her out of the sky. She had almost killed her (had the intention to kill her until she realized it had all been a mistake) and yet Clarke only wanted to help her. She understood why she needed to leave and was ready to go all in.

            What _did_ Clarke want? It was unclear to her. Clarke had reasons to want to avoid a war, but so did practically everyone else on the continent. She had nothing to gain by helping Lexa, and yet she was helping her. She guessed that Clarke wanted to spite her superiors, but even this seemed overkill.

            What did Clarke see? It seemed unlikely to her that she would be acting like this if she didn’t at least sense that something was wrong. Watching Clarke was fascinating, her bright blue eyes watched everything like a hawk, and she didn’t doubt that she had been closely observing those around her since her return. She couldn’t place it, but she trusted Clarke and she trusted her judgment.

            She did save her life, after all.

            “Is pasta okay?” Lexa was jarred from her thoughts when Clarke spoke and passed her a bowl.

            “Thank you.” She smiled and Clarke sat down.

            “I also brought you water.”

            “Thank you, again.”

            The pair ate quietly for a few moments, and she was reminded that she hadn’t eaten much since the accident. Her ribs were still killing her, every time she laughed she was reminded with blinding pain in her side, and she tried to remember to breathe as she wolfed down the pasta.

            “Shit, I guess you haven’t had a proper meal since you got here.”

            “It’s okay, there were other things happening.”

            “So what’s life like on the other side?” Clarke leaned forward on her elbows and smiled.

            “You know, I don’t think I can share _that_ much.” Lexa said in between bites. “I wouldn’t want to give away secrets.”

            “Who do you hang out with at home?”

            “I don’t have a lot of friends,” Lexa set down her fork. “I have people who have trained me and practically raised me, but almost everyone wants something from me. It’s kind of hard to make friends when you’re next in line to lead.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay,” She awkwardly fiddled with her glass of water. “It comes with the territory.”

            “I just want you to get back safe.” Clarke said. “You don’t belong here, hold on no that sounded wrong. What I meant was you’re probably not safe here. I think you’re a better asset on the other side of this.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Kane is looking for a war. Your even temperament will suit the NAR well in keeping things sane.”

            “Thank you.”

            “I know you don’t have any good reason to trust me other than that I’m the only person who has offered to help you.”

            “You stopped me from nearly killing myself.”

            Clarke raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

            “I would have died in the woods if you hadn’t made me stay.”

            “You had just survived a gnarly plane crash. I wasn’t about to let you die from hypothermia or starvation or dehydration just because you were too stubborn to listen.” Clarke looked down at the table awkwardly. “I really didn’t know who you were.”

            “I know.”

            Their eyes met for a moment and Lexa shot Clarke a reassuring smile. She was trying to let her know that she no longer thought she was out to get her. Against all odds (and her better judgment) Lexa trusted Clarke. She wanted to trust her, she was brilliant and sharp, and one of the most interesting people she had ever met.

            “I think the picture you saw was my parent’s wedding picture.” Clarke said abruptly.

            “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have…”

            “Jake was a pilot. He died in the Last War. My mom hates that I’m a pilot because she’s afraid that the same thing is going to happen to me. She wasn’t too thrilled to meet you either by the way.”

            “I almost orchestrated her worst nightmare.”

            Clarke didn’t answer for a moment. “Yeah, pretty much.”

            “I lost someone in a similar way.”

            Clarke raised her eyebrows curiously. “I’m sorry.”

            “I realized…” She hesitated. “I realized last night that I almost caused the exact same situation.”

            “That’s heavy.” Clarke admitted. “I guess that comes with the territory.”

            “Yeah.” Lexa said quietly. “I am really sorry though.”

            Clarke shrugged. “I would’ve done the same thing if I was in your place.”

            “We’re not so different after all, I guess.”

            “I guess not.”

            The pair sat quietly for a minute or two and Lexa reflected on her conversation with Clarke. They truly did have more in common than they did different, and their similarities never ceased to amaze Lexa. Clarke deserved to be a leader, she _deserved_ recognition, and she clearly wasn’t getting any. She was wondering, in fact, if Clarke had been used as a pawn in this whole scheme.

            “Clarke!” Lexa looked up when she heard someone call the other girl’s name. She looked more like Lexa, with dark hair and heavy eyeliner to match. “Who’s this?”

            “Keep your voice down!” Clarke beckoned the other girl earlier. “This is Lexa.”

            “Ohhhhhhh.” The other girl smiled. “I’m Octavia.”

            Lexa nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

            “Finn is throwing a party.” Octavia leaned on the table. “Do you want in?”

            “I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea, for obvious reasons.”

            Octavia glanced towards Lexa. “What are the terms of your house arrest?”

            “I’m not allowed to leave this base until I give up the information Kane wants.”

            Octavia glanced back to Clarke. “You should prove to Lexa that we’re not all boring and trying to ruin her life.”

            Clarke looked at Lexa curiously. “You don’t have to say yes.”

            Lexa smiled and shrugged. “I mean if _you_ want to go I wouldn’t protest.”

            “You’re going.” Octavia put her hand down in front of Clarke on the table. “You can’t fight me forever. You haven’t had fun since you fell out of the sky.”

            “Fine! You wore me down!” Clarke held up her hands in surrender. “We’ll go!”

            Octavia smiled and then bounced away. “I’ll see you there!”

            Clarke rolled her eyes and Lexa stifled a laugh.

            “Let me take these back,” Clarke said as she picked up the plates and glasses. “I’m sorry about her.”

            “Don’t be. Prove to me that you know how to have fun.”

            “Fine! I’ll prove I’m not a stick in the mud.”

            Clarke left and came back quickly and Lexa stood up, ready to follow her. _What a strange situation_ , she couldn’t help but think. She also couldn’t help but hope that it would be dark so that no one would notice her presence. Unwanted attention could easily lead to this whole thing going south.

            “You really don’t have to go.” Clarke said as she walked.

            “Okay but now I’m _intrigued_.” She poked Clarke in the ribs. “You know, I’ve never been to a party.”

            “What!” Clarke stopped dead, a look of shock crossing her face. “Never?”

            “Never.”

            “Come on, then.”

            Clarke began to walk faster and Lexa had to momentarily jog to catch up with her. The admission that she had never been to a party (never been dancing and never really had fun) seemed to spur Clarke into action with renewed vigor. There was a part of her that was begging to have a little bit of fun, and even though she was technically behind enemy lines that didn’t matter if no one could see her.

            That thought process was unbelievably reckless, but her curiosity got the better of her.

            Clarke knocked on one of the doors and it cracked open, revealing a dark room with loud and pounding music. A boy with shaggy hair peeked out and then grinned when he saw Clarke.

            “Who’s the friend?” He asked.

            Clarke glanced back at Lexa and Lexa shook her head.

            “None of your concern, _Finn_.” She laughed. “Octavia told me to come.”

            “Yeah, of course come in.”

            He opened the door wider, allowing Clarke and Lexa to step over the threshold.

            Lexa’s first thought was almost nothing because she was so overwhelmed. The small room was overcrowded and loud and the bass from the music vibrated through her whole body. Clarke was close to her side and linked their arms together.

            “Are you okay?” She leaned over and asked.

            “Yeah,” Her voice was breathy, as Clarke pressed closer to her. “It’s just a little overwhelming.”

            “It is a little loud.” Clarke admitted. “Do you want to dance?”

            “I’ve never…”

            “You’re joking.” Clarke faced her and smiled. “Just sway to the beat, okay?”

            Clarke held onto her wrists and began to sway, coaxing a smile onto Lexa’s face. She let the tension slowly release from her shoulders, and then her back, and then her legs. She let Clarke slowly move her with the beat as she slowly allowed herself to relax in anonymity.

            “Not so bad, right?” Clarke leaned in and asked.

            “No, this is nice.” She agreed.

            Clarke moved closer to her and smiled and Lexa couldn’t help but smile with her. Her arms moved up to her biceps and she felt her skin tingle where Clarke’s hands lingered. Her hands found a place just above Clarke’s hips and if that bothered Clarke, then she didn’t show it.

            The room was hot and people were bumping into them. Lexa wondered in the back of her mind if they might have been intoxicated and whether or not that was legal here, but she shooed the thought away. Clarke’s proximity to her was pleasant and for a moment she realized how starved for affection she had been recently. Clarke had managed to captivate her attention ever since they had first met.

            The music changed and became faster and Clarke released her grip on her arm and Lexa did the same as Clarke began to jump with the rhythm. Lexa followed suit, desperate to keep up for unknown reasons with a broad smile painting her face. It seemed as though intoxication would dampen the experience.

            Clarke wrapped her arm around Lexa’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together, and it stole the breath from Lexa’s lungs. For a moment she wondered if she was going to kiss her, and she leaned in a little bit before Clarke laughed and backed away before spinning Lexa in a circle that left her laughing as well.

            Clarke was stealing the air right out of Lexa’s lungs. Her face was flushed and Lexa couldn’t help but keep her eyes trained on Clarke’s dancing as her hips swayed from side to side and for a moment she forgot to keep moving as well, prompting giggling from Clarke that caused something inside her chest to flutter.

            Clarke exhilarated her in a way she couldn’t describe. She turned her back to Lexa and she instinctively moved up behind her, resting her arms on Clarke’s biceps and pressed up against her back. She could feel Clarke’s pulse speed up and the other girl sucked in a sharp gasp.

            It was easy to match Clarke’s movements, to sway her hips with hers, and to let herself get lost in the music and the moment. There was a sheen of sweat across her skin and rolling down her neck from the heat and the crowd in the room. It occurred to Lexa that her current position with Clarke was an intimate one and while she was trying not to let it affect her, she was failing miserably. Her attempts to stop her body from reacting to Clarke’s movements faltered even further when Clarke ground back against her without warning, eliciting another gasp from Lexa.

            Did Clarke know what she was doing to Lexa? It was a stupid question, Clarke was a woman of intention, and she was nothing if not observant. Her heart was hammering in her chest and it almost felt like it was rattling around in her ribcage. She wondered idly if Clarke could feel her heartbeat and if she had the same effect on Clarke that she did on her.

            Her question was quickly answered when Clarke spun around and locked her arms around Lexa’s neck and pressed their foreheads together. Lexa desperately hoped that Clarke couldn’t see the blush blooming across her face thanks to their proximity and the dancing, but it didn’t matter because amidst her pounding heartbeat and labored breathing, Clarke closed the gap between them and kissed her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where that M rating comes into play y'all....  
> There is some plot stuff still happening during the front end of this chapter, but otherwise, this is definitely NSFW. I'd be happy to post a quick summary of Lexa's internal monologue at the beginning of the next chapter if anyone would rather than read the chapter.  
> Also! Don't know if anyone has noticed! But I've been posting every week. Updates are coming on Wednesday's for the foreseeable future (or at least until school starts).  
> Thank you for reading! Thank you for all the feedback on my last chapter!!! It was amazing to see you all talk to me about this!!!  
> Until next week :D

There are any number of things that lead Lexa to kissing Clarke back in kind. It’s the heat of the room. It’s the thrill of dancing to heavy and pounding music. It’s the way she’s attracted to Clarke’s intelligence and keen perspective. It’s the way Clarke was dancing up against her that caused a low throb in her. It’s too many things to count, and they all lead to her hands reaching up to cup her face and kiss her back.

            There of course is a nagging thought in the back of her mind that this is a bad idea and that this is not the time nor place for passionately kissing someone, but neither of these nagging thoughts takes precedence. Clarke is kissing her in a way she’s been desperate to be kissed for a long time, her tongue seeking purchase between her lips, and her nails digging into her waist as Clarke pulls her closer.

            It lasts barely a minute before they separate and Lexa needs to catch her breath. Clarke is still holding onto her waist and Lexa lowers her hands to rest on her forearms and they stand there in stunned silence for what feels like forever, but is most likely less than thirty seconds. She isn’t sure what to say to Clarke, if she’s supposed to apologize, or if she’s supposed to kiss her back.

            “I’m sorry, that wasn’t appropriate.” Clarke starts an apology, but Lexa cuts her off with another kiss before she has the chance to start rambling. “I don’t know what came over me.” She continued breathlessly when Lexa backed away. Despite the apologies, she can’t help but think that Clarke really does not sound sorry.

            “Don’t worry about it.” Is all Lexa can manage to respond before pressing her lips to Clarke’s neck, relishing in the gasp that she elicits from Clarke. She’s enjoying this more than she’d like to admit and she doesn’t know quite where to draw the line. Does she need to draw a line? Probably. Is she going to take advantage of the fact that no one is watching them here? Absolutely.

            There is a quiet thought in the back of her mind that is urging her to have some self-control and end this before it gets out of hand, but it’s dark and no one knows who she is here. The party around them is so consuming that they might as well be alone, and she is reveling in the anonymity of the situation.

            Clarke stops her from kissing her way to her exposed collarbone and brings her back up to their lips and she’s surprised she doesn’t collapse from the sheer exhilaration of Clarke kissing her with the force and fervor that she is. It’s messy, there is nothing neat or well ordered about making out at an illicit party, but nothing about how they came together was neat or well ordered. The whole thing was a clusterfuck from the very beginning and in the dark no one recognizes her. No one can judge or chastise her here and Lexa cannot help but take advantage of the privacy, even if it is only temporary.

            “We can’t keep this up here.” Clarke whispers in her ear. “Someone is bound to notice.”

            “What do you want to do?” All she’s trying to do is stop herself from kissing Clarke again because she’s right. Leave her to talk her out of a potentially risky situation all over again.

            “We could go back to my room.” Clarke suggests and Lexa can feel her fingers fiddling with the little hairs on the back of her neck and she involuntarily shivers. “We’d have to be careful in the hallway, we have to look as normal as possible.” Clarke pauses and presses a kiss to Lexa’s jaw. “Do you think you can do that?”

            It’s not really a question. She _has_ to do that no matter what – they can’t stay here. They have to act as normal as possible the whole way back to the room and her fingers twitch and her head is pounding, but it will be done.

            “I can.” She whispers back and nods.

            _Maybe the walk will sober me up_ , she thinks as they weave their way through the throng of people and towards the door, _I’ll realize what a terrible idea this is_. She doesn’t _want_ to talk herself out of this, she finds Clarke attractive in more ways than one, but nonetheless she knows she is playing with fire. The walk is tense and she follows behind Clarke, afraid to say anything. The tension between them could be cut with a knife and Lexa was worried that the stray passersby might notice that something was off.

            The walk takes less than five minutes, but her fingers are twitching and she’s impatient, but the walk does sober her up a little. It makes her reconsider the situation. There are so many things that could go wrong and that don’t make sense. It’s unlikely that she’ll ever see Clarke again and that becomes a double-edged sword. On one hand she’s probably not ever going to see Clarke again and that’s a good thing – there’s no pressure and no commitment. On the other hand Clarke intrigues her in a way that no one else has in a long time and it makes her want to keep following her and see where it takes her. There is a part of her that isn’t sure that she wants to be rid of Clarke so soon.

            The whole situation leaves her answerless. What does she want? Their nations are on the brink of an all-out war, she’s next in line to lead her own respective nation, and here she is making out with someone who she should have nothing in common with. That is, they have nothing in common upon first glance, but Lexa knows better. She sees Clarke’s intelligence and prowess that is constantly overlooked by her superiors, she sees her knack for finding things she shouldn’t, but most of all she sees a part of herself in Clarke. She sees a promise that she suspects no one else does.

            Clarke fumbles with her door, letting the two of them in. The door barely clicks shut before Clarke pins her against her desk, her hands planted firmly on either side of her hips, and Clarke kisses her hard. Lexa’s hands scramble and tangle in Clarke’s hair as they begin where they left off less than five minutes ago, Lexa letting her tongue slip between Clarke’s lips as Clarke presses her thigh insistently between her legs.

            She’s not sure what she’s doing when she pushes Clarke’s jacket off of her shoulders and the fabric hits the floor with a dull thud. She’s still not sure what she’s doing or what any of this means as her hips rock involuntarily against her thigh. Her head spins from how turned on she is from all of this, all of the tension, and everything that had unfolded over the past week since the crash. For the first time in her life she felt aimless, like a ship left adrift at sea during a storm.

            Clarke breaks the kiss and she takes a moment to breathe before Clarke bites at her neck and she can hear a hiss escape from between her teeth. The other woman is insistent and is tugging at the hem of Lexa’s shirt and she wants it off, her skin is crawling, but the thoughts she had in the hallway still continue to dog her.

            “Clarke,” She whispers initially, but her voice is raspy. When she doesn’t respond, she speaks clearer. “Clarke.”

            “Hm?” Clarke looks up, her blue eyes clouded and her pale skin flushed red.

            “This…” She’s having a hard time mustering up the words. “This isn’t the right time.”

            Their eyes meet and for a moment, they’re both silent. Lexa’s chest is rising and falling rapidly as she tries to get ahold of herself. This whole situation is ridiculous and dangerous. It’s a terrible idea. All of the prior training she’s had nags in the back of her mind, and it is telling her to stop this whole situation before it goes any farther.

            “It’s never going to be the right time.”

            They’re silent once more as Lexa mulls over her words. She isn’t _wrong_ , their nations are diametrically opposed, and they will most likely never be in quite the same situation ever again. As she thinks, she feels Clarke lean forward and press her nose into her cheek. Her heart is back to rattling around in her ribcage as she balances her options carefully. There are too many extraneous factors to balance in her mind and it comes down to something almost unbearably simple.

            For as long as Lexa could remember, people were telling her that she was important. For as long as she could remember, the people who trained her told her to be wary and to be careful. They told her to avoid attachments and to be cautious of those around her. She had tentative connections with her peers, and they had always felt like barely tied ribbons. For as long as she could remember, she had carefully avoided other people, and it hadn’t gotten easier after Costia had died.

            _Everyone wants something from you_ , the warning was always sitting in the back of her mind. It was true; most people had something to gain by being on her good side. She had brought up her walls to guard against these people, and in the process had denied herself any sort of affection. It was tiring. Constantly being on her guard was tiring. Considering her peers as enemies was as well.

            Clarke didn’t want anything from her. She hadn’t from day one. Looking back, it was clear now, and even though they were so different she couldn’t help but think of their similarities as well. If she ever got the chance to see her again, it would probably be under less than ideal circumstances. There probably wouldn’t _be_ another moment like this, there wouldn’t be another moment as private and exhilarating, and in a few short hours things would change. She would be back with the NAR, and then she would lead. She would be even more alone than she was before.

            Things will be complicated after this, she knows this and accepts it as a fact. They will be complicated for both of them, and even barring all of the feelings she knows she is hiding it will still be complicated. Leaving will mean more now, and every move she makes once she is home will be similarly weighted. Her advisors will be pushing her to call for a war against the NADR, and she will fight it for as long as she can, but it may be unavoidable in the long run.

            None of these outside factors change the fact that she is pushed back against Clarke’s desk, Clarke’s hands on her hips, and her head spinning. There wasn’t a single outside factor that could have changed the fact that she wanted to keep kissing Clarke until the rest of the world fell away.

            She’s pretty sure that Clarke finds her attractive. She finds Clarke attractive in a way she hasn’t felt about anyone in a long time. It’s a slippery slope, but at her core she knows what she wants, even if it’s against her better judgment. It’s against her training, and common sense, but she can’t help but think ‘ _to hell with it_ ’.

            It’s against everything that she had been taught since she had begun her training. It’s against all of her better judgment and her common sense. All of her muddled thoughts and the nagging politics that she was entrenched in couldn’t change her mind. This was what she wanted, consequences be damned.

            “Clarke?”

            “Yes?”

            Their eyes meet again and she swallows heavily. “Lock the door.”

            Clarke lingers for a moment, seemingly too shocked to do anything, before she snaps into action and springs towards the door. The locks click shut in a satisfying way before Clarke returns to pinning Lexa against the desk and kisses her again. This time when she tugs at the hem of her shirt, Lexa lifts her arms up, and the article of clothing gets discarded carelessly across the room.

            Her skin is still burning as Clarke peppers kisses across her collarbone and neck, now fully exposed. She’s clinging onto Clarke’s arms to remain upright and she lets her eyes flutter shut at the feeling of Clarke’s fingers carefully trailing over all the skin that has been exposed.

            “Sit on the desk.” Clarke rasps into her ear and she’s all too happy to comply, locking her legs around her waist.

            She doesn’t waste any time undoing the buttons on her pants and pulling down the zipper, allowing her hand to slip under the waistband of her pants. Lexa is trying to control the sounds coming out of her mouth, but is failing miserably as Clarke’s fingers skim over her clit.

            “You’re soaked.” Clarke’s voice is low and quiet as she tries to leave her with a hickey at the base of her neck.

            She can’t even come up with a coherent answer to Clarke’s comment because she’s not wrong and she can’t bring herself to care. Clarke’s content to keep teasing her, just shy of giving her what she needs and it’s slowly driving her crazy.

            “Clarke _please_ ,” She’s cut off again by Clarke placing a little more pressure and she sees stars behind her eyes.

            “Please what?” Clarke asks, and it sounds innocent enough at first, but they’re well past that now.

            “Please fuck me.” The rest of the sentence trails off into a loud gasp.

            Clarke pushes her underwear aside in one swift movement and pushes one finger into her with almost no resistance. The heel of her hand is pressing insistently against her clit and a stream of obscenities mixed with Clarke’s name leave her mouth. Lexa’s fingers were digging into Clarke’s shoulders like her life depended on it.

            Clarke was working her towards an orgasm almost embarrassingly fast, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Stars were dancing behind her eyelids and she could feel herself being _almost_ there, so close, and if she had half of her mind still conscious she would have said something. She would have said something, until Clarke curled her finger _just right_ , and the heel of her hand pressed down just a _little bit harder_ , and she came undone around Clarke with her thighs locking around her even harder.

            It takes her a moment to slowly release her grip on Clarke and she slides off the desk. Without a word, her lips crashed into Clarke’s and she began to back Clarke towards her bed. Clarke falls back against it with no resistance and Lexa takes the moment to shed what was left of her clothes.

            “Take your shirt off.”

            Clarke nods breathlessly, quickly stripping her shirt off and throwing her bra alongside it. Lexa takes the moment to take stock of Clarke’s pale skin and the way it stands out against the dark comforter before slowly undoing her jeans and dragging them down and off of her legs.

            “Take it all off.” Clarke’s back hits the bed and she shuts her eyes as Lexa strips off what was left of Clarke’s clothing.

            She climbs overtop of Clarke, slowly letting her weight settle on her as she kissed her. If the way Clarke’s hips jerked against her thigh were any indication, she wasn’t far behind. Her teeth are working at Clarke’s neck, drawing out a moan from her and she lets her fingertips skim the curves of the other woman’s body.

            “What do you want?” Lexa asked. It was meant to be a serious question, but the only response she got out of Clarke was a breathy moan. “Clarke?”

            “Uh huh?”

            “What do you want?”

            “God, I don’t care.” Her head fell back against the mattress. “Just fuck me.”

            Lexa’s left hand slipped between their bodies and she felt Clarke’s hand grasp her right and entangle their fingers. Clarke’s hips jerk against her fingers as the sounds coming out of her mouth become less intelligible by the second. She brushes over her clit once, twice, before finally circling the small bundles of nerves in tight, rough circles.

            It earns her a drawn out moan from Clarke, who’s back was arching so she was pressed flush against Lexa’s front. Her eyes were screwed shut and her mouth was open wordlessly. She wondered if that would be enough right there to make her come undone, and took the moment to bear down with a little more pressure.

            The sounds coming out of Clarke are unbelievable and enough to drive her crazy all over again. She thinks that she’s close, but she’s not sure and slowly circles her entrance, waiting for Clarke to give her a cue. That cue never comes as Clarke goes rigid under her and Lexa can feed her short nails digging into her shoulder and her hand getting squeezed so hard that she is vaguely worried that Clarke might break her fingers.

            They’re silent for a few moments and Lexa slowly rolls off of Clarke, but doesn’t untangle their fingers. They’re facing each other on the bed, and Lexa is still afraid to say anything. She doesn’t want to break whatever trance hangs in the air now, but Clarke answers the question for her when she pulls her into another heated kiss.

            “Fuck, that was good.” Clarke punctuates her sentence with a laugh and Lexa can’t help but smile.

            “Yeah.” Her voice is soft and she nods in agreement as Clarke cuts her off with another kiss.

            For now, she can stay tangled with Clarke in her bed and forget the rest of the world around her. For now, none of it matters. Tomorrow they have to worry about getting Lexa home and stopping a continental war, but for now they can stay here, together.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Sorry for missing updates. Been busy. Been tired. You know, the whole nine yards. Anyways this is a shorter chapter that I contemplated adding onto my last chapter but decided against it. It's the calm before the storm. Update to come next week, summary: things be happening.

             Lexa can feel Clarke’s fingers tracing the tattoo the runs from the base of her neck and down her spine. She smiles to herself when Clarke traces the circle near the top and then presses a kiss to the infinity symbol on her neck. It’s a gentle and intimate gesture and she appreciates the sentiment.

            “When did you get this done?” Clarke asks and places another gentle kiss on Lexa’s shoulder.

            “About a year ago.” She’s still appreciative of Clarke’s gentle touch and proximity to her.

            “I like it.” She places another kiss between her shoulder blades. “Did it hurt?”  
            “Mmhm.” She hums appreciatively. “Yeah, it did.”

            Lexa rolls over so she’s facing Clarke again and is able to look into her stunning blue eyes. She suspected that two hours had passed since they had left Octavia’s party, and she was trying to push the thought of how complicated the upcoming day and subsequent night would be. Clarke is unlike anyone she had ever met and she wonders if they’ll ever get to meet again, and she hopes that if it happens it happens on better circumstances.

            They kiss again and it’s soft and Lexa can’t help but sigh softly. Clarke rolls her onto her back and she doesn’t want to stop kissing her, and luckily doesn’t have to. Not yet. She tries to push away the nagging feelings of being torn in multiple directions. She wants to go home, she _needs_ to go home, but she doesn’t want to leave Clarke. She’s not ready to end whatever is happening here.

            “Clarke…” She thinks that maybe they should talk about this, talk about how complicated this is.

            “I don’t want to think about anything else right now.” Clarke is kissing her neck and slowly moving lower. “We don’t need to talk about it right now.”

            “Okay.” She whispers and nods breathlessly. “Okay.”

            She’s content to push her worries out of her mind for now. There are enough things they have to worry about tonight anyway. The near future is so uncertain that she is willing to concede and push it out of her mind for now.

            The future feels like a mountain range that is shrouded in mist. She knows it is there and that it is dangerous and sharp. Jagged peaks most likely rise up into the sky, blocking her path forward. She knows this barrier is there, but she cannot see it. She cannot size up the obstacle that has yet to come.

            “What are you thinking about?” Clarke asked her. It’s mid-morning now. They could get up and prepare. They _should_ get up and prepare, but Clarke is soft and warm and her bed is comfortable. She is comfortable like this and is all too content to never move.

            “A lot of things are going to happen once I get back.” Lexa mused. “I have to do my best to prepare.”

            “What do you think is going to happen?”

            Lexa paused. There it was with those questions again. She always asked questions that made her pause – questions that made her rethink if Clarke was really working against her this whole time.

            “I want to assume a proper position of power.” She admitted. “None of my superiors have seen what I’ve seen and none of them are prepared for the future.”

            “How do you mean?”

            “They’re not prepared to negotiate and they’re especially not prepared for an all-out war. My superiors think that they are safe, and their confidence has always seemed misplaced to me, but now I know that it is.”

            “You don’t want to start a war…right?”

            “No!” She caught herself off guard with her sudden outburst. “No, I absolutely do not want a war.” She shook her head. “No good leader strives for war, no good leader strives to see their people in peril, and…” She hesitated. “No good leader would outright lie to their people.”

            “Have you been lied to?”

            “Yes. Many times.”

            “About what?”

            Lexa laughed. “Well some of it is confidential, most of it is confidential, but they lied to me about what the NADR was like. They told me that your military complexes were huge, but it’s most civilians here. They told me that it was almost like a police state. Turns out none of that was true.”

            “Are you going to set things right?”

            “I’m going to do the best that I can.”

            “Raven’s going to come by later.”

            “To talk about the plan?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Thank you.” Lexa looked at Clarke for a moment before tearing her eyes away. “You’re putting a lot on the line for me.”

            “Things wouldn’t be going so hot for me if a war started either, you know.”

            “I know, but it doesn’t negate what you’re doing.”

            “Yeah well, I have to stick it to my superiors somehow.” Clarke laughed and sat up, her eyes meeting Lexa’s. “I just didn’t think it would be this…direct.”

            “Hm, yeah.” Lexa agreed quietly, her eyes settling on Clarke’s lips briefly before Clarke closed the short distance between them.

            There was a knock on the door later that day. The time was starting to get absurd and Lexa knew that she needed to get dressed and prepare for what was ahead. There were things that needed to be in order before they departed that just simply were not.

            Clarke was half asleep, her arms firmly wrapped around Lexa’s waist. At the sound of the knocking on the door, she made a vaguely disgruntled noise and tightened her grip.

            “Clarke,” Lexa nudged her lightly and then began to run her fingers through her hair. “Someone’s knocking.”

            “I don’t care.” Clarke complained and Lexa stifled a laugh.

            “Anyone home?” Raven called from the other side of the door. “If no one answers, I’m just going to come in.”

            “Shit.” Clarke mumbled before yelling back at Raven. “Give me a moment!”

            “What, is it just you? Because according to Octavia, I don’t think it is!”

            “Shit.” It was Lexa’s turn to curse quietly before detangling herself from Clarke’s arms and finding some of her clothing on the floor. “Clarke, get up.”

            “Give me a second, Raven!” Clarke shouted again as she tried to find something suitable to pull on.

            In the time that Clarke was searching for clothing, Lexa wandered over to the door and opened it for Raven. The dark-haired girl was standing in the hallway, looking rather perturbed. Her arms were crossed at her chest and she was scowling in a way that was hard to take seriously.

            “Well,” Raven rolled her eyes. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

            Lexa raised her eyebrows.

            “You could’ve cut the tension with a knife.”

            “Great,” Lexa replied sarcastically. “Do you want to come in?”

            “I don’t know, do I?”

            Clarke pushed Lexa out of the way. “Don’t be a smartass, Rae. Come inside.”

            Raven stepped into Clarke’s room, still scowling a little, and standing close to the door. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, are you ready to get down to business? It’s almost go time. We’ve got one shot or we’re all fucked.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun challenge! What city is the NAR base Lexa lives at in?   
> As always, thank you for the reading and the feedback and the support and kindness. It motivates me to keep going and to do better and for that, I am endlessly appreciative.

               Clarke is sitting cross-legged on the bed in a simple t-shirt and shorts and Lexa finds herself sitting in the desk chair in another one of Clarke’s shirts. The easy feeling from the morning and last night had gone, only be replaced by a cold dread, and a feeling of impending doom. Raven is pacing and occasionally setting things down on the bed next to Clarke.

               “Octavia had some interesting things to say about last night.” Raven remarked snidely. “Do you want to hear what she told me?”

               “Not particularly, no.” Lexa said.

               “I’m going to tell you anyways.”

               “Rae, stop.” Clarke began to chastise her friend. “You can get it out of your system once everything else is said and done.”

               “Well, no. I want Lexa to be here for this too.” She laughed. “Octavia said you were practically fucking on the dancefloor.”

               “Raven!” Clarke jumped up and pushed the other girl. Lexa could feel her face turning bright red as Clarke started throwing various objects at Raven as Raven screamed in mock fear as she avoided Clarke’s deadly aim. The scene made her insides twist from seeing such an intimate moment. It wasn’t one she had experienced before.

               Their lives were so different, and Lexa felt like an intruder watching a scene she wasn’t invited to sometimes. The playful teasing and fighting between Clarke and Raven felt so natural, like they had known each other for years, and that was probably the case. At any rate they had known each other well enough that they could regularly tease each other. She didn’t know anyone well enough to have that kind of relationship.

               “Okay, okay I’ll give it up for now!” Raven held her hands up in mock surrender. “But in all seriousness, what we’re about to do isn’t going to be easy.”

               “What do we need to do?” Lexa asked and Clarke sat back down on the bed. She was fidgeting with her hands slightly as she glanced back and forth from Raven and Lexa.

               “I disabled the tracker in Octavia’s plane last night, so all you’ll need to do is get to her plane in the hangar and leave. Once everything is said and done, Octavia will submit a request for maintenance saying that her guidance systems were acting funny and I’ll fix it. Lexa, do you have the coordinates of your base ready?”

               “I do.”

               “Great because you’ll need those to get back from here. I got into the camera systems last night and I’ll be able to disable and spoof the cameras leading from your room to the hangar tonight. You’ll probably have about five minutes to get into the plane, so you’ll need to hustle. Clarke, I’ll send you a message exactly thirty seconds before I kill the cameras. You’ll need to do a countdown.”

               “Will you send a confirmation message?” Lexa asked. “What if you can’t kill it on time?”

               Clarke glanced at Raven nervously. “That’s not a terrible idea.”

               “If you wait for that message, you’re wasting critical time that you _need_. We need to be as efficient as possible here.”

               “So we’re just going to have to trust that you won’t fuck it up?” It came out more accusatory than Lexa had meant it to and Raven stood between Clarke and Lexa in uncomfortable silence at the question.

               “I won’t fuck it up.”

               “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

               “There are a lot of moving parts in this plan. Something has to give between absolute safety and efficiency. You need all the time you can get.”

               “I can count to thirty, Rae.”

               “I should hope so.”

               The three of them were quiet for a moment. It felt almost wrong to be asking Clarke and Raven to take on such a daunting task. They had so much to lose and the tension in the room was proof that they were aware of the stakes. She wasn’t entirely sure what would happen to them if they were caught. Would their friend, Octavia, be implicated too? This was treason…or maybe espionage depending on if a war broke out. What was the punishment for that in the NADR? In the NAR it was either life in prison or execution. Were they truly risking their life for this? For her?

               “Thank you, for everything. You didn’t have to do this.”

               “No we didn’t, but we’re doing it because we see a good reason. We have to act fast here because there’s a smoking gun.”

               “You trusted me, and now it’s time that I trust you and I trust that you’re going to do the right thing.” Clarke looked more serious than she thought she had ever seen her look. Gone was the levity leftover from last night that had spilled into the morning. Instead it was replaced by a steady gaze and unbreakable concentration.

               For what seemed like the millionth time, Lexa thought that Clarke would make a great leader.

               “I’ll make things right. I’ll stop the secrets.” Lexa promised.

               “We have one chance. Don’t fuck this up – either of you. Things need to go as smoothly as possible.” Raven became serious for a moment before beginning to make her way towards the door. “Don’t forget to take off Lexa’s tracker before you leave.”

               “You didn’t show us how.” Clarke frowned as she spoke.

               “Fine, do you want me to come by and remove it myself?”

               “Yes, please.”

               Lexa nodded in agreement.

               “Fine, I guess I have to get everything done around here!” Raven sounded half like she was joking and half like she was truly exasperated. “I’ll be around. I would suggest staying here, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that.”

               Clarke rolled her eyes. “We’ll be waiting with bated breath.”

               “Yeah, well, at any rate I’ll be back.”

               Raven left and Lexa found herself watching Clarke again. Her hands were shaking slightly and she could tell that the whole situation had left her on edge. There were things that needed to be done before tonight, things that required planning, but she found herself prioritizing cleaning herself up before everything came to fruition.

               “Clarke?”

               “Hm?” Clarke glanced up, clearly shaken out of her thoughts.

               “I’m going to go shower.”

               “Oh, okay.” She stood up and began to walk towards the bathroom, slightly disappointed that Clarke didn’t follow her. Just before she let the door close completely, she stuck her head out. “Do you want to come with me?”

               Clarke laughed and slipped inside the room beside her.

               It was later now.

               They both were dressed.

               Lexa was writing down important information.

               “You said you lost someone.”

               It had nearly been an hour since Clarke had last spoken.

               “A lot of people I know have.”

               “Will you tell me what happened?” She could hear Clarke scoot closer to the end of the bed and she didn’t move from the desk chair.

               “A hotheaded pilot looking to incite a conflict knocked her out of the sky. I don’t know what else I can say about it.”

               “What was her name?”

               Lexa let out a shaky sigh. Costia only came to her when things were bad, when she let her mind wander, and she felt like she simply could not afford to let that happen at that moment. She could hear Clarke get up and stand next to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

               “Her name was Costia.” Lexa didn’t look up as she spoke, she couldn’t bring herself to meet Clarke’s eyes. “I only seem to think about her when things get bad and I lose control of myself. There wasn’t a funeral.”

               Clarke squeezed her shoulder gently and Lexa was grateful that she clearly didn’t expect or want a response.

               “I don’t remember much about my dad.”

               Lexa isn’t sure how to respond.

               “Everyone says I look like him. Everyone says I remind them of him. I wonder if sometimes I hallucinate the things, I think I remember about him and sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if he were still here. I don’t know if I would be a pilot, if I would follow his same path.”

               Lexa reached up to gentle lace her fingers with Clarke’s and they stand for a moment. Like all the moments before it, this one is shockingly intimate to Lexa. It was unexpected to suddenly share dark parts of her life with Clarke and then have her reciprocate. It felt like a sacred trust, to trust someone else with a pain you thought you carried alone.

               “I want to stop losing people.” Lexa decided.

               “Yeah, me too.”

               “It’s almost a shame I’m leaving.”

               “Almost.”

               “This isn’t the end. There is more to come.”

               “We’ll be on different sides next time we see each other.”

               “Yeah, well we’re not on the same side now either.”

               Clarke falls silent again for a moment.

               “We’ll make this work.”

               “I hope so.”

               When Raven knocks again, Clarke is straddling Lexa’s waist and Lexa finds herself goading her on against her better judgement. Lexa hastily pushes Clarke off her just as Raven barges in, not waiting for someone to let her in. She thinks she’s about to make a smartass comment, but most likely she ends up biting it back against her better judgement.

               Raven chats with them as she works Lexa’s ankle tracker off and Lexa watches her nimble fingers dissect the wiring and then expertly work it back together. She seems distracted and most likely is, and Lexa understands why.

               “Good luck, you too.”

               Raven stands to face Lexa and Lexa clasps her hand, shaking it hard. “Thank you for everything Raven.”

               “It’s no problem. I hope everything goes to plan.”

               “It will.”

               “I hope I see you again under better circumstances.”

               “Me too. Best of luck.”

               “To you as well.”

               Lexa lets go of her arm and watches Raven and Clarke whisper to each other intensely before Raven leaves and Clarke locks the door behind her. She sinks to the floor and Lexa joins her, resting her head on her shoulder and once again finding herself holding Clarke’s hand. She’s not supposed to be scared of anything, but the sheer magnitude of the situation and her nerves about Clarke and Raven’s fate after everything is said and done almost get the better of her.

               “Now we wait.” Clarke whispered.

               “The coordinates of the base are 42 degrees North and 73 degrees West. It shouldn’t take long.”

               “I think I know where that is.”

               It’s weird between them and Lexa can’t blame her. What could she say that would make things less awkward? What can she say that would make this less intense or heart wrenching? The only thing she finds herself capable of is comforting Clarke by being near her and sharing the abject fear that they both hold.

               They find themselves sometimes quietly chatting, sometimes continuing to sit quietly, and in between the two former choices stealing short kisses from each other before they know they won’t have the chance again. It takes up most of the time they have left and when Clarke’s messenger goes off, Lexa’s heart crawls into her throat and Clarke clutches her hand with such force that Lexa is afraid that she might break it.

               “Count with me.” Clarke whispers.

               They both begin quietly counting down from thirty, Clarke’s pulse pounding in her fingers and bleeding onto Lexa’s hand. She is certain that she has never been more afraid in her life. She wasn’t even this afraid when she ejected from the plane in the crash that started this whole situation.

               “We need to go.”

               Clarke tugged Lexa to her feet and they slipped out into the hallway. Their pace is brisk, but not rushed as to not draw suspicion. They’re in the hangar in two and a half minutes and Clarke breaks out into a jog towards one of the planes and Lexa can only helplessly follow along and hop into the cockpit.

               The situation feels surreal and she can only allow herself to completely shut down as Clarke starts the engines and begins to drive towards the runway. In the distance she hears air traffic control give Clarke the green light and the familiar feeling of taking off sets into her bones. There is so much to process, in fact there is _too_ much to process.

               It is not until they are entirely in the air that it hits her.  

               Clarke begins to quietly cry, and Lexa cannot help but join her.

               She reaches for her hand again and clutches it like it is the only thing grounding her to this Earth anymore and they fly. The night is cool and clear and Lexa Woods is finally going home.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading as always :D  
> Okay so this ends what I have (in my mind) considered 'part 1'. This is also my last Wednesday update for the summer and a new semi-accurate schedule will be thought up once I am back at school and my life is more in order again. 'Part 2' will begin starting with the next update. As always, Things Be Happening.  
> You guys are so so so so great. Thank you so much for the comments and the feedback and the ideas and the kindness and positivity. The grammar there was hot garbage, but you get the point. This has been a passion project from day one, I never expected it to get the love or support it has continued to receive, and I am just so thankful for everything.  
> As always thank you for taking the time to read this.

               The intensity of the situation is making Lexa’s head spin. The second the plane touches down at the base she will be back to work. There is even more to do now than there was before, and the responsibility is now entirely on her shoulders. She has to assume her leadership position and take control before her superiors and advisors can plunge the continent into war once again.

               “We’ll be back in an hour.” Clarke said quietly. Her hands are steady on the wheel and she glances at the screens in between them before flipping a few switches on the ceiling. They are too faint for Lexa to make out what they are, but Clarke moves towards them like she’s practiced the motion a thousand times before.

               “Okay.” Lexa’s voice comes out quieter than expected.

               Clarke takes off the headset she was wearing and tossed it aside, laughing to herself. “I won’t need this. It was habit that I put it on.”

               “Clarke you’re going to need to radio into the air control tower once we get closer. They’ll blow us out of the sky if you don’t ask permission to land.” Lexa handed the helmet back to Clarke and Clarke tugged it back over her blonde hair.

               “Right, right. You should wear one too.”

               “Why?”

               “So you can hear what they say, too. If we get blown out of the sky, I want you to at least see it coming.”

               Lexa laughed dryly, but also dwelled on the fact that it wasn’t out of the question that they could get shot down. The true drawback of this operation being so _illegal_ and so _secretive_ was that no one knew they were coming. They were, for lack of a better term, completely under the radar.

               “It’d be a cruel irony if we both fell out of the sky again.”

               Clarke laughed. “It would be. I think…I think things are going to work out better in the long term because of everything that’s happened.”

               “Me too.”

               “What did Kane think that you know?”

               Lexa let the drone of the engine fill the cabin for the moment. “He wants to know why the NAR won’t give up the Great Lakes Territory. He thinks we’re hiding something.”

               “Are you?”

               Clarke’s words hung heavy in the air. She had a choice. She could tell Clarke the truth and maybe complete what the grand plan was all along, or she could trust Clarke. She could trust that Clarke wasn’t here to betray her.

               “There are illegal NAR military installations in the Great Lakes Territory. They were built well before I had any say in the matter. If they’re discovered, it will most likely cause a war and Kane already suspects that they’re there.”

               Clarke sighed. “I thought that you knew more than you were letting on.”

               “I never authorized those bases, Clarke, and if I spoke about it back at your base then there would have been a war that I never had the chance to prevent.”

               “What are you going to do now?”

               “Take the power that is rightfully mine and disengage the bases. Once we disengage, then we can start worrying about treaties and moving borders. I’m going to take these bases down.”

               “Good.” Clarke paused. “You said you’ve lost someone. You mentioned it. What happened?”

               “A rogue NADR pilot chased her down and shot the plan down just outside of the base. We never caught the pilot.”

               Clarke made a strangled noise in the back of her throat. “I, uh, Kane told me a story once. About a pilot he knew who shot down a NAR patrol plane for fun. I’m starting to think maybe he was just talking about himself.”

               Lexa felt winded for a moment. It never occurred to her that the pilot that killed Costia was still around.

               “I…”

               “I’m sorry.” Clarke shook her head. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

               “I’m sorry you lost your father.”

               “We’ve all lost people.” Clarke nodded. “Let’s not lose anymore.”

               They looked at each other and Lexa leaned over the center console and pressed a soft kiss to Clarke’s lips. She was leaving Clarke. She was leaving this unbelievable person in the hopes that she could make things right again.

               “Will I see you again?” Clarke asked quietly. Their helmets clinked together when Clarke tried to press their foreheads together.

               “I hope so.”

               “I don’t think I’ll forget you, not anytime soon.”

               “Me neither.”

               The plane keeps flying and the engines continue to whine, and Lexa doesn’t want to let go. She must, but she’s not ready. Things will change again, and they will change quickly, and she will be at the forefront. She must lead the change.

               “This is the NAR airfield, please identify yourself.” A staticky voice crackled over their headsets.

               “My name is Clarke Griffin, I’m a NADR pilot in training and I am requesting permission to land.”

               “State your business for violating our airspace.”

               “I have Lexa Woods with me…”

               “We do not take threats lightly, state your business!”

  
               “I’m trying to bring Lexa Woods back!”

               There is an ominous silence. “Turn around or we will shoot you down.”

               Lexa leaned over and grabbed the microphone from Clarke’s helmet and twisted it towards her. “This is Lexa Woods, callsign Commander, and we are requesting permission to land at the Albany NAR airbase. This is not a trap and I am not being held hostage. Again, we are requesting permission to land.”

               There is radio silence and they hold their breath for a moment. “Permission granted. We will guide your plane to the appropriate hangar once you land. There are no active flights currently, all runways are clear.”

               “Thank you for your cooperation.” Lexa said and then sat back down.

               “What happens once we land?” Clarke asked.

               Their altitude began to drop. Clarke began to flip more switches as the lights from the base came into view.

               “I’ll worry about that once we touch down.”

               “You won’t let them hold me captive, right?”

               “Absolutely not. You’re staying with me and I’m going to make that very clear. I’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.”

               “You’re sure?”

               “I’m sure.”

               The ground is quickly approaching, and she watched Clarke lower the landing gear. The landing lights are familiar to her. They’re almost like home, but home would imply that she had some sort of attachment to this place beyond duty. There is nothing home-y about the place where she had lived all her life. She has few personal affects, and it had begun to dawn on her that she didn’t even have a picture of Costia.

               They’re closer now and Clarke is changing the wing flaps to reduce their speed. She can make out the individual windows on the buildings and the stripes on the runway. Clarke pulls up on the wheel and reduces the throttles as her wheels hit the ground in a rough touchdown.

               Clarke guides the plane to follow the uniformed officials into a hangar near the main building. There are crowds surrounding the plane now as Clarke turns off the engine and opens the main hatch so they can step out of the plane.

               Lexa slides down easily and into the chaos of the people around her.

               “Lexa!”

               She looks over and sees guards trying to handcuff Clarke, but she’s fighting it.

               “Hey!” Lexa stormed over, ducking under the plane, and grabbing Clarke’s bicep. “Clarke Griffin will be free to go after all of this. You’re not to touch her. Clarke, don’t stray away.”

               Clarke nodded mutely and she grabbed Lexa’s forearm as she stormed back into the crowd of shouting personnel and uniformed officers.

               “Where is Indra and Titus?” She’s yelling to get her voice above the crowd and they both seem to materialize in front of her.

               “Lexa!” Indra seems surprised, but also relieved and Titus remains stoic as usual.

               “We need to have a meeting, now.”

               “What about…her?” Titus asked, gesturing to Clarke.

               “Clarke is staying with me. She is leaving as soon as this meeting is over.”

               “That’s against…”

               She knows Titus wants to finish that sentence with _protocol_ , but protocol is the last thing on her mind. “I’m enacting statute with the codename _Heda_ , allowing me to assume full power as Commander. As Commander, I don’t care that this is breaking protocol. We need a private meeting, _now_.”

               “As you wish, Commander.” Indra nodded and Lexa followed them into one of the buildings with Clarke still clutching her arm.

               “You’re staying with me so that nothing happens to you.” Lexa whispered to Clarke and she nodded. Her blue eyes were wide and a little glassy as she looked around at the unmarked halls and rooms.

               Indra found a small, unoccupied conference room and the four of them entered. Indra locked the door behind them and they found themselves in a small conference room with a table and a few chairs. Lexa and Clarke sat down across from Indra and Titus and Lexa let a beat pass between the group before speaking.

               “The NADR is looking to incite a war against us. They were holding me captive until Clarke helped me escape. We don’t have much time to move, but we have to disengage the bases.”

               “Lexa this is the worst possible time to disengage those bases.” Indra said. “Not if we are on the brink of war, as you say.”

               “Does…Clarke know about these bases?” Titus asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

               “Yes, that is why I am speaking freely.”

               “Lexa if we disengage…”

               “If we disengage, we can forfeit the territory to the NADR and it will buy us time, which is something we don’t have much of right now.”

               “Lexa’s escape may be a catalyst for worse things to come.” Clarke said quietly. “I have reason to believe that my plane’s radar on the day of the accident was tampered with. They were probably trying to lure her into killing me, which would have been a perfect reason to start a war.”

               “Of course she’s going to side with the plan that gives the NADR more leverage!” Titus’ hands slammed down on the table.

               “She is siding with the plane that will get the least people killed!” Lexa fired back.

               “Lexa this is completely inadvisable.” Indra warned.

               “Quite frankly, I don’t have to be concerned with what you think is or isn’t advisable. I’m ordering the disengagement to start immediately beginning tomorrow morning.”

               “Lexa, they took you prisoner. They can’t get away with that.” Titus warned.

               “They won’t, but for now I will do what will save the most lives. Clarke will be allowed to go home and I will be sworn in as Commander tomorrow morning. The bases in the Great Lakes Territory will disengage, and then we will begin talks with the NADR in an effort to avoid a war. Am I being clear?”

               “Yes, Commander.” They responded at the same time.

               “I’m going to escort Clarke back to her plane. She is to be allowed to leave immediately and she is not to be tracked. Am I clear on that as well?”

               “Yes, Commander.”

               “We’re going to start fixing this tomorrow.”

               Lexa didn’t wait for an answer and left the room with Clarke, guiding her out the way they came, but stopping just shy of the exit. She glanced around wildly before spotting a small utility closet.

               “Where are we going?” Clarke hissed as Lexa pulled them into the closet.

               It was dark and cramped. She could barely make out the outline of Clarke’s blonde hair and bright blue eyes in the dark and she pulled her in for a hug. Clarke’s fingertips tugged at her shoulder blades and she let her forehead rest on Clarke’s shoulder. They stood silently for a moment. She could feel Clarke’s rapid pulse and her own slowly melding into one panicked heart.

               “I’m going to make it right, I promise.” She whispered. “I’ll fix this.”

               “I believe you.”

               “I hope when we see each other again, it’s under better circumstances.”

               “Me too.”

               They don’t let go of each other for another moment before Lexa releases her from her grasp and gently kisses Clarke’s forehead. Clarke clasped the back of her neck and pulled her down into a proper kiss. She melted into it for a moment before pulling away again.

               “You need to go.”

               “I know.”

               They stood in the dark, neither of them wanting to move. The responsibility was almost too much to bear, not just to leave, but for everything. The world was almost entirely resting on her shoulders now and every choice mattered.

               They didn’t say anything else as Lexa walked Clarke back to her plane. They shook hands as casually as possible.

               “Good bye, Clarke.”

               “Good bye, Lexa.”

               Their eyes met again and Lexa hoped that they said everything that she couldn’t bear to put into words right yet. Clarke’s plane was guided out towards the runways and with a heavy heart, Lexa watched her take off. She watched until her plane became a speck in the distance until it wasn’t visible anymore and then she trudged back to her room that barely felt like with was hers and shrugged off her jacket.

               As the jacket hit the floor and small piece of paper peaked out of the pocket and Lexa picked it up to examine it. Her gut twisted when she realized it was a picture of Clarke and when she flipped it over, there was a radio frequency written in delicate handwriting. She set the picture on her dresser gently and then threw herself onto her bed.

               Tears sprang into her eyes and she let it wash over her as she cried.

               There was so much left that had to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com  
> Edit: Fixed some typos, sorry I don't have a beta reader :(  
> If you're interested in beta-ing, shoot me a message on my tumblr no worries tho


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 y'all.   
> I actually started my first day of classes today, but I've been working on this over the weekend. I got it to a point where I was definitely happy with it.  
> A couple questions while I have you here: do the indents bother anyone? I write in MS Word and I indent because it's easier for me to read, but I can fix all of the indents if they've been irking anyone.   
> I also would love to have a beta reader! If anyone's interested, HMU on Tumblr. I am only one woman and while I do try my best, things sometimes slip through.  
> Thank you guys for reading! Hope you have a great day and beginning of the school year if you're in school!

               “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

               Clarke Griffin stumbled into the medical bay, breathing hard. Her mom was sitting at her desk filling out patient reports and looking more concerned by the second as Clarke failed to give a coherent response. She leaned on the counter and brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes as tears welling in her eyes threatened to spill over and fall onto the desk.

               “I did it.” She gasped out. “It’s done.”

               “What is?” Abby stood up and quickly glanced around. “Clarke, come with me.”

               She grabbed Clarke by the wrist and Clarke trailed listlessly behind her. Her mind was somehow blissfully empty after everything that had happened. Blissful would be the wrong word though, the emptiness felt like a forced vacancy. It was almost like after everything that had happened, she just couldn’t comprehend anything any longer.

               Abby dragged Clarke into an observation room and sat Clarke down on a chair before locking the door behind them. Clarke slumped forward, letting her head rest in her hands, and took a few ragged breaths Her hands hid the few tears that slipped between her shut eyelids and she didn’t say anything as Abby stood in front of her, hands on her hips, and saying something that she just wasn’t comprehending.

               “Clarke, what’s going on?”

               “Can I speak freely here?” Her voice was scratchy.

               Abby paused. “Yes.”

               “We got Lexa out.”

               Her eyebrows raised in surprise and she shifted to crossing her arms over her chest. “It was successful?”

               “Lexa is assuming her rightful position of power.”

               “Good.” She nodded. “Are you okay?”

               “I don’t think I’m ever going to meet anyone like her ever again.”

               “She is a keen one.”

               “That’s not what I mean.”

               “Did something happen that I should know about?”

               Clarke shrugged. “I need to get some information on Kane.”

               Abby narrowed her eyes again. “ _Clarke_. What is going on?”

               “I think Kane may have killed one of Lexa’s friends.”

               “Why do you care?”

               “I don’t know! But I want to see his files! I want to know!”

               “If it _was_ him, what are you going to do? Exact revenge?”

               “No, but it’s useful information.”

               Abby sighed. “Are you in love with her?”

               “What!” Clarke’s stiffened at the notion. “No! It’s not like that!”

               “Then what is it like? We’ve done all we can do now. It’s no use if we keep spinning our wheels like this.”

               “She’s planning on giving us the Great Lakes Territory.” Abby raised her eyebrows as Clarke kept talking. “She’s trying to buy time so that Kane doesn’t incite a war. Her advisors disagree with her and she has the power to override them, but I don’t trust it.”

               “You don’t think that she has enough power to control the NAR.”

               “No, I do. She’s…” Clarke gazed off, thinking about how electric Lexa was once she stepped off the plane. “She’s a force of nature, but I don’t want to make this harder for her. If I can try and facilitate things from our end…”

               “Clarke, go home.”

               “This is important!”

               “You need to go to bed, Clarke.”

               “Mom…”

               “Clarke, _go home_.”

               “Not until…”

               “I’ll get you the files, okay? _Go home_.”

               “Alright.”

               Abby escorted Clarke back to her room.

               She needed to see Lexa again.

* * *

 

               “Commander!” Lexa turned around when she heard the shout. She had been sneaking into one of the engineer’s workshops to try and find a radio. So far, her efforts had been in vain and until this moment she had managed to avoid being caught snooping.

               “Oh hello.” Her smile was tight.

               “Were you looking for something?”

               It occurred to Lexa that she didn’t even know he engineer’s name. He was tall and lanky with unruly blond hair that almost fell into his eyes. His smile was easygoing, and she hoped that she could just politely excuse herself from this whole encounter.

               “I, uh, no I’m okay thank you.” She stammered, trying to make her way towards the door.

               “Can I help you with anything?”

               “No, no I was on my way out.”

               “Are you sure?”

               She hesitated for a moment. “I’ve been looking for a radio?”

               “A radio?” He raised his eyebrows. “I can help with that.”

               “Really? That’d be a big help.”

               “Of course, of course. Are you looking to transmit or receive?”

               “Both.”

               “Great, great.” He walked deeper into the workshop. “Do you want to keep this on the down low?”

               “Could you? That would be helpful.”

               “Of course.” Lexa followed him back through the workshop. “What do you need this for?”

               “That’s classified.” She laughed and he smiled. “What’s your name again?”

               “Aden.” He began digging through a box. “Do you know what frequency you want to use?”

               “I do.”

               “Is that _also_ confidential?”

               “Yes.”

               Aden pulling out a small box that looked sort of like a briefcase and set it down on a workbench. He opened it up and flipped a switch and a soft humming noise emitted from it. Aden hummed softly to himself as he attached a small headset to it. He held the earpiece to his ear and nodded before setting it back down.

               “Can I show you how to use it?”

               Lexa nodded and stood beside him.

               He pointed to the biggest dial in the center. “This tells you the frequency you’re on. The little knob under it changes the frequency.”

               “How would I broadcast with this?”

               “You’d press this little red button. I don’t know if this has enough bandwidth to broadcast and receive at the same time, though. You’ll have to test that for yourself.”

               “Thank you, Aden.”

               They shook hands and he handed the case to her. “Good luck with whatever you’re planning on doing with that.”

               “Thank you for the help again.”

               “Can you find your way out?”

               “I can.”

               Lexa made her way out of Aden’s workshop and took the lesser travelled hallways back to her room. She had a meeting shortly but needed to hide the radio first. So far, her transition to Commander had been mostly smooth. Leaders from the other territories had been mostly agreeable, with the exception of the leaders from the Great Lakes Territory.

               The Great Lakes Territory was officially uninhabited. The area was mostly a swampland, with the lakes having overflowed long ago and turning most of the land into lake and ruin. There were five lakes at one point, but now it resembled one mutant lake that connected the two countries. The territory was administered from the Albany base and the bases directed remotely from there as well.

               She slid the radio under her bed, she would broadcast later tonight if she was lucky. If she was lucky, Clarke would be listening and would answer her. Clarke. She missed Clarke. She tried to push it out of her mind and reserved the thoughts of Clarke for when she was too tired to ward them off. She was brilliant and bright and was everything that she couldn’t have in her life.

               She checked the time and shook her head. It was time to have another meeting. Her plans to disengage the bases were controversial to say the least and she had limited time to enforce it. If she had to, she would forcibly remove those in control of the Great Lakes Territory and oversee the management herself until the time for negotiations with the NADR came.

               Lexa swiftly braided her hair and quickly inspected herself in the mirror. She looked presentable for this meeting, and for now that was good enough. She was meeting with leaders from all twelve territories today to discuss the best plans for moving forward and to alleviate their concerns as the transition finished. The NAR had gone for almost a decade without a proper Commander and this was no doubt a shock.

               She made her way from her current building and walked across the base, punching in a code at the door and letting it scan her eye, and then strode into the building. The meeting was on the top floor of the building and was kept secretive in order to preserve security. Indra and Titus would also be there, as her advisors it would have been rude to not invite them, despite how they had reacted when she had assumed position of Commander.

               She took the elevator and it opened into the meeting room. The twelve leaders stood around a long oval table, with Indra and Titus sitting at the far end with a space left in between them.

               “Commander Lexa.” Titus nodded. “Welcome.”

               “Thank you all for agreeing to meet with me,” She glanced around the time. “Please sit.”

               Everyone sat and Lexa made her way to her seat. She folded her hands on the table and looked around. The leaders were shifting nervously in their chairs and she waited a few moments before speaking again.

               “Your cooperation over the past weeks has been greatly appreciated. Soon we’ll be in the right position to make our move.”

               “Your move will disgrace the NAR.” the leader of the New England Territory argued.

               “I am moving to buy us time. Your territory would most likely be the first attacked _if_ the NADR wanted to incite conflict. We must make some small sacrifices in order to maintain the big picture. The only reputation that truly suffers from this is mine, and that is my burden to bear.”

               “And what of Clarke Griffin?” The leader of the Southern Territory stood. “Will she face consequences?”

               “How do you mean?” She narrowed her eyes.

               “He means that Ms. Griffin should face consequences for her actions.” Titus clarified.

               “Clarke Griffin has returned to the NADR.” She wanted to keep it brief and steer the conversation away from her.

               “Clarke Griffin should face consequences!” Roan, the leader from the Great Lakes Territory, stood and slammed his hands on the table.

               “Clarke Griffin has done nothing wrong!” She fired back.

               “She must face consequences for kidnapping the Commander!”

               Indra looked at Lexa, nervous. Titus looked indifferent to the situation, almost as if it was what he was expecting.

               “Clarke Griffin will be granted immunity from all charges regarding my capture. She did not have a hand in capturing me.” She kept her voice steady and her expression as indifferent as possible.

               The table erupted in shouts that she couldn’t make out. There were shouts directed at her and general anger being directed in all directions. She stood silently at the head of the table with Indra and Titus still seated beside her and she let the twelve leaders squabble with each other over their own pride. To them, punishing Clarke Griffin would be a way of exacting revenge on an unknowable entity. They could not see that punishing her would solve nothing and would only serve to worsen the relationship between the two countries.

               For a moment she was incredulous that these men became leaders at all. Their yelling and indignation was childish. In fact, Clarke had shown her more of an even keel in the face of complicated situations than these seasoned ‘leaders’. She hadn’t realized how dire the situation had become until this moment and regretted not seizing the power that was rightfully hers sooner.

               “Silence!” She shouted and her voice cut through the chaos of the room. “Sit down, all of you!”

               The leaders sat down and a few avoided eye contact with her as she glared at them.

               “Commander—” Roan began.

               “That is quite enough from you, Roan.” His expression withered and he took his seat again. For a moment Lexa couldn’t help but smile triumphantly. “How is the disengagement going?”

               He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Lexa—”

               “Commander.” She corrected him.

               “Commander, the men stationed in these bases are not taking to the orders.”

               “Isn’t that what you’re there for?” Her smile was fake and in his eyes she could see a bolt of fear.

               “Commander, they find it unwise to leave.”

               “I truthfully do not care how unwise they find it. My order is to disengage, effective immediately. If you cannot remove them, I will go and do it myself and continue to administer the Great Lakes Territory until the end of this conflict. You have control over your own people, no?”

               A muscle under Roan’s eye twitched. “Yes, Commander.” He choked out.

               “The same goes for the rest of you,” She raised her gaze to the stunned leaders. “If you prove ineffective in the coming times, I will _not_ hesitate to remove you. Have I made myself clear?”

               “Yes, Commander.” They chorused. They were nervous, which was exactly what Lexa wanted. They had to understand that she meant business, or nothing would ever get done.

               “These will be trying times. Our main goal is to avoid war right now. No conflict and _no casualties_. I will not hesitate to do what needs to be done in order to keep my people safe and I expect that all of you follow suit. This is not a time for dissent or rogue ‘heroes’. I will not hesitate to remove any of you if the event arises. In the meantime, does anyone have any legitimate questions?”

               A tense silence follows the questions.

               “You know where to go if there is ever confusion. You are dismissed.”

               The leaders filed out of the room until only Lexa, Indra, and Titus were awkwardly sitting in a row.

               “How long do you think you can protect Ms. Griffin?” Titus asked.

               “As long as I have to.” She answered softly.

               “What happened…in there?” Indra asked. She was trying to broach the topic delicately but was clearly struggling.

               “Nothing.” Lexa shook her head. “But Clarke has done nothing wrong and these people want to take their anger and frustration out on her because she is the closest target. It is…disturbing to see someone who helped me at her own risk be targeted by people who do not know her or the situation.”

               “I cannot guarantee her safety.” Titus said.

               “I know you cannot, but _I_ can. I have the power to keep her safe.”

               “Is this anything like —” Indra tried to speak, but Lexa cut her off.

               “Do not finish that sentence.” She warned her. “It is _nothing_ like Costia.” She hissed as she stood up and walked out of the room. Her mind was reeling. Clarke was nothing like Costia and the differences were stark and welcomed.

               She missed her. Dearly.

               People saluted to her as she walked down the building’s steps and outside. She didn’t want to be outside and she didn’t want to be inside. There was a part of her that simply just didn’t want to exist. The road ahead of her was lonely and difficult. She had to keep control over the NAR or the whole continent could very nearly fall into ruin.

               There was a part of her that wished she had never called the _Heda Protocol_ into action. She wanted to go back to her classes and learn things from the sheltered world of the classroom and textbooks. _Although if everything was like that you wouldn’t have fallen for Clarke_ , she thought bitterly for a moment. It was a double-edged sword – Clarke had brought light and peace into her world but she had also shaken her to her core. Everything she had known before was now turned on its head and she wondered if she would rather have been forever sheltered or been exposed to the intrigue that was Clarke.

               She would know what to do. She’d be supporting her through these tough decisions and defending her from the twelve territories and Indra and Titus. Lexa hadn’t realized how starved for affection she had been until Clarke. Even the simple intimacy of friendship was foreign to her at times, and Clarke crashed into her life and gave her everything. Clarke hadn’t held back with her kindness and for once Lexa was one hundred percent certain that someone wasn’t using her for her power and influence.

               _If only she were here_ , Lexa thought as she opened her bedroom door and sat on the bed. She had spent the past week desperately wishing Clarke was here. She was wishing Clarke would lay beside her and tell her everything would be alright, she was wishing Clarke would hold her until this all passed, wished for Clarke kissing her, the weight of her body, the warmth of the other girl as she slept, and for the gentle kindness of her love and friendship.

               She could feel it in her bones that Clarke was special.

               She wanted to hold onto her and never let go.

               She wanted to run away into the Ruined Lands with her and never return. They could have a small house and they could just ever leave. Clarke could escape from Bellamy and Kane and she could escape from the reality that was her life. There would be no more burden. There would only be each other.

               “I wish you were here.” Lexa whispered into the dark and empty room. “I wish you were here.”

               Stewing in her own complicated emotions wasn’t going to solve her problems. Laying here and wishing Clarke was next to her wouldn’t bring her back. She slid off the edge of the bed and crouched down so that she could pull the case with the radio out. She propped it up on her bed and plugged it into the wall and then plugged the accompanying headset into the radio.

               With her free left hand, she grabbed Clarke’s photo and flipped it over, turning the knob and watching a little plastic bit tell her what frequency she was on until it lined up correctly with the frequency given. She had to know if Clarke was alright, how she was feeling, and what was happening to her. Unless Clarke had forgotten her.

               Her anxiety sat baled up in her stomach and she put the headset on despite it. She had to know. She had to try and get a response. She owed to herself and to Clarke. It was hard to imagine Clarke forgetting her after everything that had happened, after all she seemed sincere the last time, they had been together, but she supposed that it could have all been a show. Or a front. Or a fluke. The whole thing could have been a fluke, a weakness in Clarke’s emotional state, but she hoped like hell that it wasn’t. She wanted Clarke to feel the same string tying them together that she did.

               She pressed down the button to broadcast and took a deep breath.

               “Hello, is anyone listening?"


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm back!  
> Here's the new chapter!  
> A big thank you to Cleo24 for beta-ing, you were immensely helpful :)

               “Clarke, you need to get out.” Raven shook Clarke’s shoulder as she slumped on the bed. “You’ve been a mess since Lexa left. How long has it been again?”

               “Has she called in?” Clarke looked forlornly at the radio that had been pushed into one of the corners in Raven’s room.

               “You know I’d tell you if she did.” Raven sat down next to Clarke. “I’ve never seen you like this before, what even happened?”

               Clarke shrugged in response. “I don’t know, I just…”  
               “It’s almost been three weeks. Was she really that good of a screw?”

               “Raven!” She smacked her arm. “Will you ever learn how to be tactful?”

               “Never.” She smirked. “C’mon, you love me.”

               “Thank you for everything.” Clarke leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. “Even though I guess she’s forgotten about me already.”

               “Clarke, you’re unforgettable. You’re the whole fucking package.”

               “Yeah well maybe not.” She laid back on Raven’s bed and Raven sighed dejectedly when she realized that Clarke was not intending to leave anytime soon. “I feel like so many people…I feel like they don’t see me sometimes. They see my mom in me and wonder why I’m not half as useful—”

               “Stop that! Stop that right now, Clarke Griffin, you are extraordinary just the way you are. You understand?”

               “Yeah, okay Rae.”

               They sat in silence on the bed and Clarke closed her eyes. “Do you think she’s okay?”

               “I think Lexa can handle herself.”

               There was a knock on Raven’s door and Clarke sat up at the sound of it. Raven walked over to the door and cracked it open, revealing Abby on the other side. Clarke rolled her eyes and fell back against the bed, draping her forearm over her eyes. She had been hiding in Raven’s room in the hope that her mom wouldn’t bother her anymore.

               “Clarke, I know you’re there!” She pushed Raven aside and walked in. “What’s wrong with her?” She turned to Raven.

               “Depressed that Lexa hasn’t radioed in.” Raven shrugged. “She’s _lovesick_.”

               “I am not!” Clarke protested.

               “Okay well I have some important news. Kane, myself, and a few other leaders are convening in a week and a half with NAR leaders in order to bargain for the Great Lakes Territory.”

               Clarke sat back up on the bed, suddenly interested. “Lexa will be there?”  
               “I can’t imagine who else would have the power to make these negotiations.”

               “I hope everything goes well.” Clarke sighed.

               “I got the files.”

               “What files?” Raven turned to Clarke.

               “Kane’s.”

               Abby handed Clarke the files and she absently flipped through them. “Thank you. This will be helpful.”

               “That’s not the only thing.”

               “Oh?”

               “You said one of Lexa’s _friends_ was shot down by a rogue NADR pilot and you suspected it was Kane. It wasn’t. It was Pike, he’s just a step below Jaha in terms of leadership.” Abby sat down next to Clarke and Raven casually leaned against her desk. “Pike is the head of all the military divisions, we’ve been looking at the wrong person. Kane has been acting on Pike’s orders, he’s where the threat was coming from, and I’d bet that he’s the one who set up Lexa.”

               “Jesus Christ.” Raven pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head as Clarke sat in stunned silence.

               “Is Pike going to the meeting?” Clarke asked.

               “Yes.”

               “We have to warn her!” Clarke jumped to her feet. “Oh my god, I have to warn her.” She burst out of the room with Abby and Raven calling after her. She didn’t know how, but she knew what she had to do. She ran towards the airplane hangar.

* * *

 

               She screamed until her throat hurt.

               It had been 19 days since she had left the NADR with Clarke’s help.

               It had been 19 days since Clarke left her a photo with a radio frequency written on the back of it.

               It had been 12 days since she had first tried radioing Clarke.

               She was trying three times a day: once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once at night.

               There had been no response.

               “Please let there be an answer.” She whispered as she slipped the headset over her ears and turned on the radio. “Please, please, _please_ Clarke.”

               She was set to meet with leaders from the NADR about the Great Lakes Territory soon, a week and a half in fact, and she needed to talk to Clarke. She needed to hear her voice, her reassurance that everything had gone alright, and so far, she had found the silence disturbing. That was unless Clarke had been leading her on and had no intention to ever answer her. She needed to hear that Clarke was okay.

               Her hands shook violently when she listened intently for a moment and then pressed down on the little red button that would allow her to broadcast. Maybe she would be lucky this time and there would be an answer. She could only hope for an answer, wish for it with her whole life, and she hoped that maybe the universe would take pity on her if only for a moment.

               “Is anyone listening?” Her voice came out raspy and she cleared her throat. “Clarke, are you there?”

               Static crackled in her ears and tears rolled down her cheeks.

               “Clarke, _please_.” Her voice was barely audible as she began to cry. “Clarke where are you?”

               Sobs wracked her body and threatened to choke her. Was Clarke even still alive? She had no way of knowing now. The sadness took her body in waves, threatening the fabric of her sanity, and she collapsed under the weight of her emotions. Everything she felt – everything she fought to suppress – bubbled to the surface in her moment of weakness.

               She screamed until her throat hurt.

               It had been 19 days since she had left the NADR with Clarke’s help.

               It had been 19 days since Clarke left her a photo with a radio frequency written on the back of it.

               It had been 12 days since she had first tried radioing Clarke.

               She was trying three times a day: once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once at night.

               There had been no response.

               She ripped the headset off her head and threw it at the wall as hard as she could. Tears continued to stream out of her eyes and down her face, they stuck to her neck, and they dropped onto her collarbone. She screamed until her throat was raw and she couldn’t so much as whisper if her life depended on it.

               Things had been falling apart since her last meeting. Of course, she was keeping it quiet. She didn’t want it to appear like she was losing control. Luckily the bases had been disengaged thanks to Roan’s eventual cooperation and she hadn’t need to step in. The leaders of the other territories were chafing against her after having little to no direction for years.

               The bases were disengaged.

               She was meeting with the NADR in a week and a half.

               She had to remind herself that she could do this, that this was what she had trained for her entire life, but things were so much harder in reality than they were in the classroom. She used to do simulations – they were random and computer generated and she could do them in her sleep. They made the world feel more black and white and clean cut and there was a right and a wrong answer. In the simulations her feelings weren’t hopelessly entangled and she wasn’t so painfully _alone_.

               Indra was too serious to confide in or be a proper companion. She was pretty sure that Titus hated her and wanted to see her removed from power. Lincoln and Anya weren’t close friends of hers, they were acquaintances or associates rather than friends. Or maybe they were friends and she was too nervous to admit it. Clarke was her friend. Clarke was more than a friend, and she was so desperate for anything to hold onto. If only Clarke would _answer_ her, if only, if only, _if only_.

               She wanted to scream again. She was so lonely and so frustrated and it had never occurred to her that she was lonely _or_ frustrated until Clarke came along. Her fingers twitched and her phone rang, jarring her from her thoughts.

               “Lexa Woods.” She cleared her throat, hoping her voice sounded normal.

               “Lexa! Hey!” Anya’s voice was on the other end of the line and Lexa breathed a sigh of relief. “Congratulations on becoming The Commander.”

               “Thank you! How are you?”

               “I’m good. I was hoping I could ask a favor of you.”

               _Oh, what now?_ “What do you need?”

               “I need someone to take a patrol tonight and no one else will do it.”

               “I can do that. I think flying might clear my head.”

               “Thanks, Lex. Flying has always seemed to help you. How are you holding up?”

               “I’ve been…better.” Lexa sighed.

               “I can’t imagine the stress you must be under, between crash landing, being captured by the NADR, and then immediately initializing the _Heda Protocol_. I know you can handle a lot, but it seems like too much even for you. Are you holding up alright?”

               “Yeah, yeah I just have a lot on my mind.”

               “I can only imagine. This is an easy patrol.”

               “The last _easy_ patrol I had, I thought I ran into a plane carrying nuclear weapons, and then got myself captured by the NADR. Will this be actually easy?”

               Anya laughed. “Yes, and I think just turning off your brain and flying will do you a lot of good.”

               “Thank you again.”

               It would do her a lot of good to hear a familiar voice, it may help her drag herself out of the mess she had created.

               “I’m looking out for you Lex,” Anya paused. “Why are you doing this?”

               “You mean with the _Heda Protocol_?”

               “Well yes, but not just that. I’ve heard rumors that you plan to forfeit the Great Lakes Territory.”

               “Where did you hear that from?”

               She could practically hear Anya shrug on the other end of the phone. “I’ve heard whispers of it around some officers and in the air traffic control room. I was just wondering if you had anything to say about it.”

               “I don’t have anything else to say, at least not presently.”

               “Would you be able to tell me if you did have anything to say about it?”

               “No.”

               “Do you have anything to do with it?”

               She laughed a little. “What do you think?”

               “You’ve been hard to read lately. To be honest, I’m not sure.”

               “Thank you, Anya. Will I see you tonight when I go to patrol?”

               “Do you want to?”

               “I think I would like that.”

               “Then I’ll see you tonight at 22 hours.”

               “Okay, then.”

               She hung up the phone and sighed. There was much to do, and she still had people to see and talk to before she finally got the chance to be alone. She had to meet with Indra alone about troop preparation. It may be time to call upon the reserves – not to action yet but to alert. They may have to mobilize soon, hopefully not against their own people, but she would not hesitate to force the rest of the disengagement of the Great Lakes Territory if she had to.

               Who did she trust? She began to make a mental list of people she immediately trusted to deal with this situation in the coming weeks. She had no choice but to continue to trust Clarke, even if she was disconnected from her at the moment. She trusted Indra despite her initial hesitancy because beyond all of that she knew that Indra would follow what she said. She supposed she could trust Anya, although with what clearance level was unclear. For no particular reason she felt like she could trust Aden and although she had not been able to speak privately with Lincoln in some time, she knew that he would comply and help her in a time of need.

               After taking stock of the situation, it seemed that she had more people on her side than she originally  thought. She felt as though she did not know where she stood with Roan (but she wanted to believe that could change for the better) and she knew that she had to be wary of Titus in the meantime. Titus’ constant disapproval and disagreement with her during those times spoke volumes about where his allegiances laid.

               She would meet in Indra in private to discuss military matters, but she believed the meeting would be brief. The only thing Indra had to discuss was how to scale back their military, or rather how to make it appear like they scaled back their military. With the upcoming meeting it was important to _appear_ non-threatening to the NADR in order to facilitate peace. The trick was not to appear _weak_ however, and that was a fine line to walk. If she intentionally understated her military forces too much then they may ask for more and she felt like she had no obligation to comply with it.

               The Great Lakes Territory was better off as a shared space and that was why she was so willing to give it up. If the lakes became trade routes, they would both benefit greatly. It was no secret that the NADR was at a disadvantage when it came down to natural resources. If it wasn’t for the large agricultural culture taking place in that area before the war broke out, it was unlikely the NADR could have survived on their own, but thanks to the culture they were able to cultivate large indoor farms across the territory.

               If the NAR and NADR could open trade between each other, the NADR would grow stronger, but they would also grow increasingly more dependent on the NAR. It was a double-edged sword for them, a thin line to walk between gaining power and resources and becoming more dependent on a nation that was technically an enemy. Their leaders seemed arrogant and only focused on the short term – focused on revisiting a war they had previously lost in order to restore what they deemed as stolen.

               That was not to say that she did not see their leaders as a threat or at least somewhat competent. From what she had gathered Clarke’s mother, Abby, was most likely in a position of influence and she seemed at least somewhat competent. Their arrogance made them dangerous and she would not be caught off guard.

               However, this trade deal was a trap. Not for her or her people, but for the NADR. By allowing them into the Great Lakes Territory and reopening trade they would become dependent and vulnerable. They were sliding into something she saw as an inevitability, but they saw as a joke – a uniting of the two nations.

               The phone in her room rang again.

               “What now?” She grumbled as she picked it up. “Hello?”  
               “Lexa.” It was Indra.

               “I was just about to make my way over, is everything alright?”

               “My attention has been called to other business, I’ve been asked to travel to the Great Lakes Territory.”

               Lexa’s heart began to pound in her chest. “Why? Is everything alright?” She knew she sounded frantic and desperate.

               “There is no military trouble if that is what is concerning you.”

               “Then why are you going?”

               “Roan asked if I would oversee the movement and storage of munitions.”

               “ _Roan_ asked you?”

               “I know you distrust Roan.”

               “And you know very well why I distrust Roan.”

               “I am not going unaccompanied.”

               “I would not let you do that.”     

               “Is there anything you need me to do while I am there?”

               She paused. “Stay safe. Stay vigilant.”

               “You could just tell me not to let my guard down around Roan.”

               “Fine then. Don’t let your guard down around Roan.”

               “I will stay aware regarding this delicate situation.”

               “Thank you, as always.”

               Indra hung up and Lexa sighed. The meeting wasn’t meant to take long, but they were her only plans for the evening before the patrol that Anya had mercifully  scheduled her for. The sun was setting soon and the twilight was pretty. Her window overlooked the tarmac and the orange and purple hues spilled over the now empty and quiet runways. People had gone in and gone home for the evening, leaving the airfield with an abandoned feeling.

               She sighed and pulled her jacket over her shoulders and locked her bedroom door as she left. She couldn’t leave yet, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t go outside. She could be alone in her own room, but there were reminders of what had happened, what was happening, and what was to come. She was about as alone in her room as she was in a crowd.

               On the tarmac, she was alone. She punched a code into the hangar doorway and stepped into the massive space. Three fighter jets were in an orderly row. They were dormant now, silent. They were like eerie art installations when they were still – they were meant to be screeching through the sky. They were meant to move.

               She walked over to the first plane and hooked her fingers around the edge of the front of the plane. Her feet found purchase on the front piece of landing gear and she scrambled up the side of the plane until she was sitting with her back to the cockpit on the sharpened nose of the plane. She wondered briefly if she commiserated with the planes because she also always felt the magnetic pull to keep moving. She was purposeless if she wasn’t moving.

               Costia used to sit here with her. They would sneak into locked hangars and sit on planes and stare at the hangar doors until they fell asleep or they got yelled at. Her ghost still lingered in the space and the ritual, although she didn’t mind the company. She wished that Costia was here and that she hadn’t been taken from her so cruelly, but her memory was still a warm one and she cherished it. It was a comfortable feeling to sink into even as she sat alone in a space that was once shared.

               The hangar doors made a shrieking sound as they started to move upwards. She tensed, hoping that it wasn’t Titus or another advisor coming here to scold her. There was no doubt he would be against her patrolling for Anya and he would try and stop her on the grounds of safety. She was relieved when the silhouettes clearly did not match that of her bald and overbearing advisor.

               “Lexa!” Anya called and she couldn’t help but smile and breathe a sigh of relief. “I thought I’d find you in here!”

               “Did you now?” She called back.

               “Actually, _I_ suggested you’d be here.” Lincoln corrected.

               “Did you now?” Anya nudged him and the pair stood underneath the nose of the plane and just under Lexa.

               “It’s good to see you.” Lexa leaned over to get closer to the pair.

               “You too, we weren’t sure if you’d ever come back.” Anya climbed up the side of the plane and Lincoln scrambled up beside her, perching on the glass dome covering the cockpit.

               “Now that I’m back, I’m not sure if I want to be.” Lexa laughed. “Things are so complicated now.”

               “I can’t believe you called the _Heda Protocol_ into action. I was always under the impression that you were going to wait until they appointed you.” Lincoln shook his head.

               “I _was_ going to wait, but there are things happening that need to be addressed now. I felt as though I couldn’t trust my advisors to handle the situation delicately, especially considering that I spent time on the other side. I know more than they do.”

               “Cocky much?” Anya joked.

               “Our countries are teetering on the edge of war and _no one realizes it_.” Lexa corrected.

               “The Great Lakes Territory.” Lincoln breathed.

               “They were illegally  armed before I had any say in the matter. If this is revealed to the NADR then there will be war. If I came back and didn’t immediately assume leadership then we would have continued to play with fire. Even now, they are fighting me on this.”

               “It seems like you have a lot on your plate.” Anya said.

               “People will die if I mess this up, Anya. Not just our people – so many people on both sides. If we allow this to happen then we will tear the continent and our country to shreds. There will be nothing left to rule if this turns into an all out war.”

               “Do you think they’d use nuclear weapons like they did in the Last War?” Lincoln asked.

               “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to use them at least; the Ruined Lands are still irradiated beyond all recognition. I fear a nuclear conflict would make this space completely uninhabitable. I fear for everyone who lives here.”

               “You fear for them, too.” Anya said flatly.

               “I do.” She admitted. “This conflict is _pointless_.”

               “You fear for them because you’re close to the situation now. You’ve met them.”

               _I’ve done more than simply meet them._

“They’re just like us, Anya. How could I not?”

               “What’s your endgame here?” Lincoln asked. “Do you even have one?”

               “I know what I want the endgame to look like. I think if I talk about it though, it won’t happen. It’s delicate.”

               Anya nodded. “Don’t reveal your hand yet.”

               “I won’t.”

               “By the way, I’ve already let the control tower know that you have permission to leave now.” Anya slid off the plane. “C’mon, Lincoln.”

               Lincoln landed on the ground next to her. “Stay safe, Lexa.”

               “Thank you.”

               Lincoln made his way out of the hangar, but Anya lingered for a moment. “You have support, you know.”

               “What?”

               “You have the people’s support. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you do.”

               “That reassures me. I’m worried that the decisions I’m making are going to make a lot of people angry.”

               “Oh, they will, but are they even the right decision if they don’t make _some_ people angry?”

               “I never thought about it that way.”

               “Just some food for thought. Anyway, you’re cleared for takeoff. Fly safe.”

               “Thanks, Anya.”

               Lexa slid off the nose of the plane and walked around to the ladder leading into the cockpit. She swung the hatch open and slid inside, grabbing the helmet off the dashboard and gently placing it on her head before turning the ignition for the plane. The engines began to whine, and she buckled the safety harnesses before doing a brief check of the instruments.

               It felt natural to be back in a plane. She knew in her heart that she wasn’t destined to be stuck behind desks in board rooms and offices. She checked the wing flaps and then slowly began to guide the plane out of the hangar and onto the runway.

               “Albany Air Traffic Control, requesting permission to take off.” She was making her way towards the runways.

               “Callsign?” The operator sounded bored.

               “Callsign Commander.”

               “All runways are free, Commander. Request to takeoff is granted.”

               “Noted, thank you.”

               She easily maneuvered the jet onto one of the runways and took a deep breath. She flipped a few switches and then engaged the throttle, the plane speeding down the runway. She felt the front of the plane lift off the ground first and then the back shortly followed. The plane picked up speed quickly in the air and she circled around the base once before flying Northwest towards the patrol border.

               The base was out of sight in less than five minutes and she breathed a sigh of relief. In the air she could be alone and unbothered. She was another plane just screaming by ahead, nothing more than something that would make the average person glance upwards for half a second.

               Lexa flew silently for 30 minutes, allowing her mind to slowly empty aside from the typical flying routine. That was, until there was a small blip on her radar. She sighed and glanced at the screen, showing another patrol plane.

               “Please identify yourself.” She broadcasted onto all air frequencies. “This is North American Republic pilot, callsign Commander and you are flying in restricted air space.”

               “Lexa?” She thought the other pilot said her name through the garbled radio transmission. “Lexa is that you?”

               Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Please identify yourself.”

               “Lexa, it’s Clarke. It’s Clarke.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hot second, hasn't it? I was shooting for about a month and I feel like I got that.  
> Spooky season is upon us! Happy Halloween!  
> Per the usual - the constant feedback and support I get is seriously mindboggling. There's no way I would've gotten this far without the reassurance that at least someone was invested.  
> And a big thank you to Cleo24 for beta-ing again :)

            It was so obviously a trap. After weeks of absolute silence from Clarke, it was too good to be true, and it was all too simple to make this kind of trap. She was going to get kidnapped again, but with significantly less leniency. She was going to get kidnapped and then it would be checkmate for the NAR.

            “Lexa,” _Fuck_ , it sounded so much like Clarke. It sounded exactly like Clarke. “Lexa are you there? Is that you?”

            “Why haven’t you answered me?” She responded. She wanted to sound secure and confident, but her voice cracked so badly it might as well have shattered in the middle of the sentence. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks.”

            “Raven said she hadn’t heard anything.”

            “Is it really you?” Lexa breathed. “Is this a trap?”

            “I was coming to warn you.”

            “About what?”

            “Can I tell you on the ground?”

            “Is it bad that I don’t believe any of this?”

            “Ask me anything. You know we don’t have a lot of time before we fly out of range.”

            “What did I say that night? In your room.”

            There was the hum of static over the radio and for a moment she was worried they had in fact flown out of range or that the imposter had given up.

            “You told me it wasn’t the right time.”

            Lexa breathed a sigh of relief. “Do I need to tell you what you answered that with?”

            “If you’re offering? You could be an imposter.”

            “You told me it was never going to be the right time,” Lexa inhaled slowly. “And I’m starting to think that you were right.”

            “I’m turning around, is there somewhere we can safely land?”

            Lexa quickly turned on the autopilot and opened a local map on the plane’s console. Five miles to the west there was an old air field, it had been abandoned long ago. There was no chance there would be anyone there.

            “There’s an old airfield about five miles to the west of my location. There’s no chance that anyone will be there.”

            “Is it military?”

            “No, or if it was it hasn’t been for at least ten years.”

            “Do you know if the runways are still serviceable?”

            “I don’t, but it’s the closest thing that for sure won’t have anyone there.”

            “I’ll follow you, then?”

            “I’ll land first, you circle. If my landing doesn’t go well, you need to leave the area.”

            “I won’t leave you in a wrecked plane.”

            “You’re going to have to, unless you want to face a whole host of charges from the NAR. These are the kind of charges I’m not sure I’d be able to protect you from.”

            “Is that the airfield on the left?” Clarke asked.

            “I’m going in for the approach. I’ll let you know if it’s safe to land.”

            Lexa dropped her altitude low enough to circle the airfield. The old runways looked overgrown, but without any large splits in the asphalt. She dropped her altitude more and could make out the details on the old air traffic control tower. The windows on it were mostly blown out, no doubt due to the abuse of the weather and lack of upkeep over the years.

            Upon closer inspection, it seemed more likely that this was once a commercial airport rather than a military base. That meant that it was highly unlikely for anyone powerful enough to get either of them in trouble for lingering in the area.

            “It looks safe to land. Going in for the final descent.”

            She needed to slow down as much as possible before she landed. Even though it didn’t look outright dangerous, it was still a dangerous landing and there could be danger lurking that she couldn’t see from above. There could be roots that dangerously split the concrete of the runways that she couldn’t see, there was too much growth to tell what was really there.

            As she approached the runway, she could see Clarke’s plane circling overhead more clearly. Flying near someone was such a strange experience, to be so close to another person, yet so far. She glanced away from Clarke’s plane and focused back on the tedious landing process at hand. It was at moments like these that she wished that she was flying a helicopter.

            She lowered the landing gear and did her best to slow down. She was approaching much slower than normal in an effort to land as safely as possible. All in all, the entire landing prospect made her nervous. This was a risky landing to say the least, and there wasn’t much help around if it went awry.

            The front wheel touched the runway and she could feel the jolt of it running over roots and other odds and ends shake the plane. The two back wheels touched down next and bounced along the runway. She was running out of room to slow down, but if she were to suddenly hit the brakes she was worried that the plane might keel forward like a child flipping over the handlebars of their bike.

            She raised the wing flaps higher and she landed just shy of the end of the crumbling runway. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she scrambled for the radio.

            “Clarke?”

            “Is it safe to land?”

            “Yes, but don’t land behind me. It’s a rough landing.”

            Clarke’s plane circled lower in the sky and she held her breath as she went in for the final approach. Her plane bounced along the roots and bushes lining the runway and rocked side to side unstably before finally slowing to a stop. The hatch on the plane swung open and Clarke slid out of the plane and gracefully landed on the ground.

            Lexa’s breath caught in her throat and it took her a moment to tear her gaze away from Clarke and open the hatch. She slipped down the side of the plane and landed on unsteady feet. Her legs felt like jello as she turned around and looked at Clarke who had stopped on the other side of her plane and stood as still as a statue.

            “Clarke,” She breathed.

            They were both rooted to their respective places and Clarke blinked slowly, once, before running at her and throwing her arms around her. She breathed deeply and wrapped her arms around Clarke, feeling the other woman’s pounding heartbeat.

            “You’re okay.” She whispered and Clarke nodded.

            “Lexa, I have to tell you something.” They separated a bit and Lexa nodded. “You have a meeting in two weeks with NADR leaders, one of them is Charles Pike.”

            “Who the hell is Charles Pike?”

            “He controls all of our military and is the one Kane gets his orders from. He’s one step below Jaha in terms of leadership, and I think he’s the one that shot down your friend.”

            Lexa sucked in a breath. “How do you know this?”

            “I have his files. What’s your game plan here?” Clarke grabbed Lexa’s forearms. “What’s the endgame?”

            “What do you mean what’s the endgame?”

            “I know you’re allowing us into the Great Lakes Territory. Why? What’s your goal?”

            “I think the ongoing feud between our countries is ridiculous. I want to bring us into a true peacetime, not just a tentative truce. I think deescalating tension is the right place to start.”

            “Do you want them to become…one country?”

            “No. There would be too much resistance to that, but I think we can make it so we stop trying to start a war every few months.”

            “And what would that do?”

            “What do you mean _what would that do_ , Clarke? It’d save lives, it’d—” She hesitated on her words and looked away from Clarke’s piercing stare. “What the hell, maybe it’d give us a proper chance to be together.”

            Clarke inhaled sharply before tugging on her forearms and bringing her in for a kiss. Lexa relaxed into it, breaking free of Clarke’s grasp to cup her face. Clarke wrapped her arms around her neck and it occurred to Lexa that it felt like she was home, even though she was in the middle of nowhere.

            The sound of a low flying plane broke the moment and they jumped apart. Lexa looked up at the sky, trying to figure out where the plane was coming from.

            “Is there any chance you’ve been followed?” Lexa asked.

            “No! What about you?”

            “There’s no way…” She trailed off midsentence before she looked up and saw the plane approaching again. It was an NAR plane. Someone _had_ followed her. “It’s one of mine.”

            “It’s an NAR plane?” Clarke asked nervously. She reached for Lexa and tangled the tips of their fingers together. “Do you know the pilot?”

            “It’s too soon to tell, but I think I might.”

            She went to climb back into her plane to radio the other pilot, but she saw that the plane was making its final approach and was squaring up to touch down. She reached back for Clarke’s hand and she took it as the plane made its bumpy landing. She couldn’t see into the cockpit, but the hatch opened as soon as the plane stopped and Anya jumped out.

            “Okay, what the _fuck_?” Lincoln hopped out on the other side.

            Lexa let go of Clarke’s hand and made her over to Anya. “I could say the same to you!”

            “Why are you here? Why is _she_ here?” Anya gestured at Clarke. “I’m going to say it again, _what the fuck is going on here_?”

            “Why did you follow me?” Lexa demanded. “I could have you charged for this.”

            “But you won’t.” Anya replied smugly. “I was just curious to see where you’d go and then I saw you veer off course and land here.” She waved her hands around the dilapidated airport. “Did you plan this?”

            “She didn’t.” Clarke stepped forward and Anya and Lincoln both looked equally angry and confused. “I was coming to warn her and by a stroke of good luck we passed each other in the air.”

            “Warn her about what?” Lincoln had his arms crossed and it occurred to Lexa that he was trying to look intimidating on purpose.

            “She has a meeting with NADR officials in two weeks and there was vital information she didn’t have.”

            “Wait sorry, how do you know Lexa again?” Anya asked.

            “Guys, stop it.” Lexa warned. “I met her when the NADR had me.”

            “You were holding hands when we landed.” Lincoln said bluntly.

            The four of them fell into an uncomfortable silence. The wind whistled through the airport in a harrowing way. Clarke shifted her weight from foot to foot, Anya was clearly grinding her teeth, and Lincoln looked like he’d rather not be having this conversation.

            “Well, what do you want me to say?” Lexa asked.

            “I’d like some goddamn answers.” Anya demanded.

            “You have no right to demand anything from me, Anya.”

            “Oh, cut the Commander shit. You’re not in any position to argue with me.”

            “Should I go?” Clarke asked quietly.

            “No!” Lexa answered.

            “Perhaps.” Lincoln shrugged.

            “Fuck, Lexa this better not be what it looks like.” Anya pinched the bridge of her nose.

            “What does _this_ look like?” Lexa asked angrily.

            “Looks like you got seduced by the enemy!” Anya’s tone was accusatory, and she folded her arms in front of her chest defensively.

            “Okay, well that’s not what happened!”

            “Then what _did_ happen?”

            “I realized that we’re wasting our time fighting the NADR, okay?” She was shouting now. “They’re just like us, Anya, they’re fucking just like us!”

            “So that was a strictly platonic hand-holding?”

            Lexa fell silent and felt Clarke’s fingers brush the inside of her wrist.

            “No.” She answered quietly and looked away. “I hardly see why that matters.”

            “Alright, then.” Anya nodded. “Don’t lie to me: have you two been in contact since you came back?”

            “No. I tried to get in touch through a radio signal, but it didn’t work.”

            “But it’s safe to say that we have friends on the inside now?”

            “Yes.” Clarke jumped in. “There are people willing to help you.”

            “I’ll look at the radio, then. Lincoln can help.” Anya elbowed him and he nodded.

            “And then what?” Lexa asked.

            “We’re going to meet with the rest of your friends on the inside before this meeting in two weeks. I don’t like the web you’ve tangled yourself in, but I like and respect _you_ Lexa. We’re going to help you in any way we can.” She elbowed Lincoln. “Right?”

            He nodded. “Your advisors are unhappy with you.” He didn’t ask, it was a statement.

            “Very. They are distrustful. They don’t believe I have a plan, but I think they’d be even more upset if they actually knew my plan.”

            “Then you’re going to need all the help you can get. We’ve got your back.” Lincoln said. “It’s disgraceful that they’re refusing to be loyal to The Commander.”

            “History will judge them. For now, we work with what we’ve got.” Lexa said. “Thank you…for the support.”

            “I think this is insane, but you know I’ll support you.”

            “Thank you.”

            They exchanged a firm handshake and Lincoln nodded quietly. She didn’t need reassurance from either of them.

            “Clarke, was it?” Anya asked and extended her hand. Clarke took it tentatively and the two shook hands. “Suppose I’ll be seeing more of you.”

            “You too.” Clarke’s voice was weak.

            “We’ll fix the radio and get in contact with you. There will be a rendezvous soon, if everything you’re saying about a meeting is true.”

            “I’m waiting to hear from Indra, too.” Lexa jumped in. “Roan asked for her help in the Lakes Territory.”

            Lincoln raised his eyebrows. “Does that concern you?”

            “A little.” Lexa admitted. “I don’t trust Roan.”

            “Neither do I.” Anya agreed. “We keep this on the down low.”

            “Agreed.”

            “We’re going to leave now. I’ll come calling for you if you’re not back this evening.” Anya warned.

            “I’ll be back.”

            “Oh, and wait until we’re out of range to start making out.” Anya teased before rolling her eyes.

            “Do not _even_ go there, Anya.” Lexa warned. “I’m dead fucking serious.”

            “And I’m dead fucking serious about not wanting to hear you making out with Clarke.”

            Lincoln began to look even more uncomfortable than before. “Can we please leave now that we know what’s going on?” He asked.

            “We’re going to talk more tonight.” Anya pointed at Lexa as she walked back towards her plane. “You’re not getting out of this.”

            “Didn’t think I was.” Lexa replied dryly.

            Anya didn’t answer as she hopped back into her plane and waved. She turned the plane around and using the path she had cleared on landing, took off with relatively few problems. Anya circled the airport a few times while gaining altitude before flying back towards the base.

            “So, uh, Anya is intense.” Clarke laughed.

            “Bet she was blocking my transmissions.” Lexa grumbled.

            “Well, now she won’t.” Clarke leaned in and pressed a quick kiss against her cheek.

            A gust of wind blew across the tarmac and Lexa pulled her jacket around her tighter.

            “Does your plane have another seat?” Clarke asked, looking up.

            She shook her head. “No.”

            “Mine does.”

            They climbed into the cockpit of Clarke’s plane and Clarke shut the hatch, keeping out the cold wind. She let her fingers tangle with Clarke’s across the center console before clasping them together. She could feel Clarke’s pulse in the base of her thumb and the way it sped up ever so slightly when she looked over at her.

            “Clarke?” She asked quietly.

            “Yeah?”

            “Think they’re out of range yet?”     

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at machinerisms.tumblr.com


End file.
